US official: 'Indication' missing Malaysia plane went down in Indian Ocean

                                   Malaysia Airline

A source Reports: That the Security chiefs have now moved the USS Kidd into the area, although it will take the naval destroyer 24 hours to reach its new position.

"We have an indication the plane went down in the Indian Ocean," a senior Pentagon official told ABC News.

The official said they are working on a theory the plane flew for another four or five hours after disappearing from radar, before plunging into water.

Earlier today, an aviation expert claimed the missing plane could be "thousands of miles" from the current area being searched - from the South China Sea to India's territorial waters - after flying for hours on auto pilot.

Retired British Airways pilot Alastair Rosenschein believes Flight MH 370 has plunged into the Indian Ocean half way between Madagascar and Australia.

Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live, he claimed the Malaysian jetliner is around 5,000 miles away from where rescuers are looking in the South China Sea after flying on a course set by the pilots before the crew passed out from a drop in cabin pressure.

He said: "The initial reaction for pilots in that case would be to put on oxygen masks immediately.

"However, had they failed to do that the next option would be to turn off the airway in order to do a rapid descent.

"Without the oxygen masks they would have passed out within a few seconds.

"That would have left the aircraft on autopilot heading in whichever direction they had turned the aircraft on the autopilot.

"I'm suggesting that they would have made that initial heading a reciprocal one back towards Kuala Lumpur airport.

"That doesn't mean they turned the aircraft directly and exactly toward Kuala Lumpur airport it could quite happily have been a parallel track with the airway.

"With the fuel on board that would put the aircraft finally as it ran out out of fuel, with everybody unconscious on board, somewhere around the mid-Indian Ocean which is thousands of miles away from where they're looking at present.

"The worst case scenario for the location of the aircraft would be half-way between Madagascar and Australia, a very very difficult area to search and of course a huge area."