Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: Investigators Fly Identical Plane on Same Flightpath

As the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 continues to baffle experts, Malaysian investigators have taken to the air in an identical 777-200 in an attempt to retrace the missing airliner's flightpath.

The re-enactment confirmed speculation that it banked west, said a senior Malaysian military official on Sunday.

The identical plane generated radar and satellite data that appears to match data provided by MH370, according to the Malaysian Insider.

"The idea of the flight was to find out the possible direction the missing plane could have gone," an official told AFP.

The official said new findings generated data believed to show the missing plane diverted from its intended flight path across the South China Sea, returned back across Malaysia and then travelled northwest towards the Andaman Sea.

The identical Boeing 777 included zig-zag moves thought to assist in avoiding civilian radar.

"The plane was flown exactly how the missing plane flew based on military radar data. It did a turn-around, flew across the Malaysian peninsula and up north," the official said.

"That is why we can conclusively say which two possible directions the plane flew and we have now refocused our search and rescue operations to these two new areas."

On Saturday, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced that data indicated the communications systems of MH370 were deliberately de-activated by someone aboard, and the jet diverted away from its Kuala Lumpur-Beijing flight path.

The search has widened to as far away as Kazakhstan and another reaching southwest toward the southern Indian Ocean.

The challenges of finding the plane in such a vast area was likened to a space mission. "It is like going to the moon. The operation is going to be more challenging," the official said.