lengthy article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/12/world/asia/malaysia-jet.html?_r=0
"SEPANG, Malaysia — The Malaysian authorities now believe that a jetliner missing since Saturday may have radically changed course around the time that it stopped communicating with ground controllers. But there were conflicting accounts of the course change and what may have happened afterward, adding to the air of confusion and disarray surrounding the investigation and search operation.
As criticism of their inability to find any trace of the jet has mounted, the Malaysian authorities have repeatedly insisted that they were doing their best to solve the mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, with scarce data and almost no precedent. Yet the government and the airline have also released imprecise, incomplete and sometimes inaccurate information, with civilian officials contradicting military leaders.
On Tuesday, the fourth day after the plane disappeared while on an overnight flight to Beijing, the country’s air force chief, Gen. Rodzali Daud, was quoted in a Malaysian newspaper saying the military had received “signals” on Saturday that after the aircraft stopped communicating with ground controllers, it changed course sharply, from heading northeast to heading west, and flew hundreds of miles across Peninsular Malaysia and out over the Strait of Malacca, before the tracking went blank.
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The Malaysian authorities expanded the search area in recent days. Credit Hoang Dinh Nam/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The air force chief did not say what kind of signals the military had tracked. But his remarks raised questions about whether the military had noticed the plane as it flew across the country and about when it informed civilian authorities."
