Officials investigating the disappearance of a Malaysian airliner with 239 people on board are narrowing the focus of their inquiries on the possibility that it disintegrated mid-flight, a senior source said on Sunday.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 vanished after climbing to a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing in the early hours of Saturday. Search teams have not been able to make any confirmed discovery of wreckage in seas beneath the plane's flight path almost 48 hours after it took off.

"The fact that we are unable to find any debris so far appears to indicate that the aircraft is likely to have disintegrated at around 35,000 feet," said the source, who is involved in the preliminary investigations in Malaysia.

If the plane had plunged intact from such a height, breaking up only on impact with the water, search teams would have expected to find a fairly concentrated pattern of debris, said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the investigation.

The source was speaking shortly before Vietnamese authorities said a military plane had spotted an object at sea suspected to be part of the missing airliner.

Asked about the possibility of an explosion, such as a bomb, the source said there was no evidence yet of foul play and that the aircraft could have broken up due to mechanical issues.

Malaysian authorities have said they are focused on finding the plane and have declined to comment when asked about the investigations.

However, the source said the closest parallels were the explosion on board an Air India jetliner in 1985 when it was over the Atlantic Ocean and the Lockerbie air disaster in 1988. Both planes were cruising at around 31,000 feet when bombs exploded on board....

...U.S destroyer USS Kidd is now reportedly being moved in to search the area, while Malaysia was due to ask for radar data from India and other neighbouring countries to see if they can trace the plane flying north west.

This evening a White House spokesperson conceded the possibility of a new search, saying 'new information' prompted the move. He did not make clear what the information was.

'It's my understanding that based on some new information that's not necessarily conclusive - but new information - an additional search area may be opened in the Indian Ocean,'White House spokesman Jay Carney said. 'And we are consulting with international partners about the appropriate assets to deploy.'

'We're looking at information, pursuing possible leads, working within the investigation being led by the Malaysian government,' Carney added.

Meanwhile, India plans to imminently deploy planes and ships in the southern section of the sea, a senior Indian official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

The senior Pentagon official reportedly told ABC News it would take 24 hours for USS Kidd to be moved into position....

Originally posted by Huskerpatriot:
My theory is that it was hijacked by islamofacist terrorists, whisked off to parts unknown. Non-Muslim crew and passengers decacitated. Plane to be loaded with fuel, explosives and radioactive material. This suicide guided dirty missile to be delivered to a high value (western densely populated area) at a time of their choosing.

No evidence, just my hunch.

...But Denis Giles, editor of the Andaman Chronicle newspaper, says there's just nowhere to land such a big plane in his archipelago without attracting notice.

Indian authorities own the only four airstrips in the region, he said.

"There is no chance, no such chance, that any aircraft of this size can come towards Andaman and Nicobar Islands and land," he said.

The Malaysian government said Friday it can't confirm the report.

And a senior U.S. official on Thursday offered a conflicting account, telling CNN that "there is probably a significant likelihood" the plane is on the bottom of the Indian Ocean....

The FBI is formally joining the investigation into the missing Malaysian airliner and is expected to begin analyzing hard drives from computers seized at the pilots' homes as soon as this week.

A federal law enforcement official said the material, including a flight simulator recovered from one of the pilot's homes, is likely to be shipped to the FBI's lab in Quantico, Va. The official is not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation and requested anonymity.

Since the plane's disappearance, the FBI and Justice Department had offered to assist the Malaysian government but until now had not been formally invited to join the inquiry as is required.

Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday that the two governments have been "in ongoing conversations about how we can help."

"We're working with authorities, but we don't have any theories (on the cause of the plane's disappearance)," Holder said Wednesday.

In Malaysia, investigators said Wednesday they are trying to restore files deleted last month from the home flight simulator of the pilot of a missing Malaysian plane, but the wait for answers was too much for some relatives who disrupted a news conference....

...In rare cases, aircraft have been destroyed as a result of fires started from the devices, although they have been cargo planes in both incidents.

In one case, UPS Airlines Flight 6 crashed while attempting an emergency landing in September 2010 en route from Dubai to Cologne in Germany.

Billie Vincent, the former head of security for the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, said the revelation re-affirmed his belief that flames started in the cargo hold, destroying the aircraft's communication systems then filling the cabin with toxic fumes.

This, he says, would have overwhelmed the passengers but may have given the pilots a chance to divert the aircraft for an emergency landing.

He told Air Traffic Management: 'The data released thus far most likely points to a problem with hazardous materials.

...Najib Razak said this was the conclusion of fresh analysis of satellite data tracking the flight.

Malaysia Airlines had told the families of the 239 people on board, he said.

The BBC has seen a text message sent to families by the airline saying it had to be assumed "beyond reasonable doubt" that the plane was lost and there were no survivors.

There were 227 passengers on flight MH370, many of them Chinese.

Relatives of those on board who watched the announcement at a Beijing hotel wept with grief, and some were taken away on stretchers by medical teams, news agencies reported....