The search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 continues after more than a week since its disappearance. Authorities believe that it was intentionally diverted off course and are now considering the possibility that it landed in an unknown country. They have widen their search to cover 11 countries.

It was first thought that the last contact with the plane was less than an hour after take off, but recent statements by authorities claim that a ‘satellite ping’ of the flight was detected from one of two air corridors nearly seven hours after it had disappeared from air traffic control screens. One of the corridors is a northern route from Thailand to Kazakhstan, the other is a southern zone that goes from Indonesia towards the southern Indian Ocean.

Investigations into the pilots, crew and passengers are yet to reveal any vital information. 25 countries have joined the search for the missing flight. US officials fear that the plane may be a trial run for future terrorist activity, or could itself be used in an attack similar to 9/11.

If this has been a very carefully orchestrated, pre-planned event then the aircraft and its passengers are the asset of the people who perpetrated this activity. It would be bizarre to destroy your asset by running out of fuel and crashing it anonymously into one of the oceans or a land mass without declaring what the point of the exercise is,” said former head of air safety at British Airways, John Lindsay.

It has been estimated that MH370 may have been able to travel at least 2,200 nautical miles, from its last point of contact. According to experts flight MH370 would have required a runway of approximately 1,5 km to land. WNYC have created a map using this information, and found 634 runways that meet this criteria, which are shown on the map below.

[ Source : Sky , DailyMail, DailyMail, Mashable ]