More countries join search for missing plane

25 countries have joined the search for Malaysia Airlines 370, missing for over a week now. Malaysian defense and transport minister Hishammuddin Hussein said the number of countries involved “in the search and rescue operation has increased from 14 to 25, which brings new challenges of coordination and diplomacy to the search effort.” Earlier on Saturday, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said someone on board the plane had deliberately manually switched off the aircraft’s communications systems. The Guardian also reported that the person who sent the last message to air traffic controllers in Kuala Lumpur, “All right, good night” was aware that the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System had, by then, been already manually shut down. This further adds to the suspicion the plane was hijacked, according to the report. This has, however, been downplayed by Malaysian officials.

Read the full story on Rappler.

A related story about the aircraft being deliberately diverted is also on Rappler.

More information is available from The Guardian.