The Malay Mail Online
March 16, 2014
KUALA LUMPUR, March 16 — A Pakistani official today dismissed reports suggesting that missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 may have landed in the South Asian country.
Pakistan’s Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Aviation Shujaat Azeem told news portal Dawn.com that the country’s military did not observe the Boeing 777-200ER approach or enter its airspace.
“It’s wrong, (the) plane never came towards Pakistan,” he was quoted as saying in the report.
India today similarly discounted the possibility of the plane entering its airspace.
Yesterday, Malaysia revealed that satellite data has allowed investigators to arrive at two “corridors” where the plane could possibly be located: a northern arc from northern Thailand to the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan in central Asia, or a southern one from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.
The northern corridor would have brought the plane towards South Asia.
The northern option crosses heavily-militarised zones that made it unlikely that an unidentified aircraft the size of the Boeing 777 could have slipped past unnoticed. A defence industry executive said interceptors would have been deployed immediately once its presence was detected.