Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Pilot’s Last Words: ‘All Right, Good Night’

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 remains missing after dropping off civilian radar early on Saturday, and officials have now released the last known bit of information transmitted before the airliner with 239 people aboard vanished.

Malaysian officials met on Wednesday with several hundred Chinese families of passengers, sharing the last words of the pilot to air traffic controllers. Just before entering Vietnamese airspace and disappearing from radar, the pilot said, “All right, good night,” a participant at the meeting said.

Officials now believe Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 may have flown thousands of miles off course, with the search turning away from the South China Sea and looking in the Indian Ocean for the missing aircraft.

The mystery surrounding the missing flight has dragged on for days, with still no clues as to where the flight ended up after going missing from radar. But new information seems to indicate that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 may have flown for hours after its last transponder reading. Pings from the airliner’s service data system indicate that it flew toward the Indian Ocean for four to five hours, the opposite direction of its intended route.

“There is probably a significant likelihood” that the aircraft is now on the bottom of the Indian Ocean, a senior US official told CNN, citing information shared from Malaysia.

At the request of Malaysian officials, US officials moved the USS Kidd into the Indian Ocean to aide in the search.

“We’re not out here freelancing, and it’s not just something the U.S. Navy thinks and no one else,” said Cmdr. William Marks of the U.S. 7th Fleet. “So this was by request of the Malaysian government. They asked the Navy to move our ship to the west into the Strait of Malacca…. It is coordinated, but certain ships and aircraft stay in the east, and some go to the west. And we’re moving to the west.”

But the search frame for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has now increased dramatically, shifting to the world’s third largest ocean, a setting much deeper than the original area in the South China Sea.

There are still no clues as to what caused Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 to crash, with theories ranging from terrorism to pilot error and even ideas that the plane could have landed.