<관련 영문 뉴스>

Malaysia says jet's disappearance 'deliberate'

 A missing Malaysian airliner was apparently deliberately diverted and flown for hours after vanishing from radar, Prime Minister Najib Razak said Saturday, stopping short of confirming a hijack but taking the "excruciating" jet drama into uncharted new territory.

   Najib said investigators believed "with a high degree of certainty" that
systems relaying Malaysia Airlines flight 370's location to air traffic control
were manually switched off before the jet veered westward in a fashion
"consistent with deliberate action".

   But a grave-looking Najib told a press conference watched around the globe
that he could not confirm whether the plane had been forcibly taken over.

   "Despite media reports that the plane was hijacked, I wish to be very
clear: we are still investigating all possibilities as to what caused MH370 to
deviate from its original flight path," he said.

   He called it an "excruciating time for the families of those on board."

   The new information appeared to cast aside a host of theories on the
plane's disappearance, which has transfixed the world and left frustrated
families of the 239 passengers and crew baying for scarce information.

   Previous scenarios included a sudden mid-air explosion, catastrophic
equipment or structural failure, or a crash into the South China Sea.

   But Najib's announcement opened a whole new avenue of speculation including an attempted 9/11-style attack.

  Final satellite communication with the Boeing 777, scheduled to fly from
Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, came more than six-and-a-half hours after it vanished from civilian radar at 1:30am on March 8, said Najib.

   That would equate with the time Malaysia Airlines has said the plane would
have run out of fuel.

   Investigators had concluded the plane was diverted west from its original
flight path, and thus a search in the South China Sea would end, Najib said,
but would continue in the Indian Ocean. (AFP)