BANGKOK, March 18 – A Royal Thai Air Force radar station in the southern region detected a passenger aircraft departing Malaysia but which U-turned to Penang which may have been the Malaysian jetliner before it went missing, according to Thai Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal (ACM) Prachin Chantong.
ACM Prachin said that Malaysian authorities have requested radar information from Thailand for investigation into mysterious disappearance of the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777-200 flight MH370.
Flight 370 vanished March 8 with 239 people aboard a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
He said according to the information of Air Force radar system at Surat Thani that covering southern Thailand cities including Phuket, Hat Yai, Songkhla and Surat Thani has detected a passenger plane taking off from Kuala Lumpur and did a U-turn, diverting to Butterworth, Penang Island before heading into direction of the Strait of Malacca.
The information was in accordance with the announcement by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak that the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777-200 aircraft was apparently deliberately diverted and flown for hours after vanishing from radar.
ACM Prachin said the Air Force would forward the information to Malaysian authorities to check whether it was a missing MH370.
