In the continued absence of any hard, physical evidence as to what happened to Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, the latest speculation from US security officials is that the plane may have flown on for four hours after its last known contact.
This supposition is based on data automatically transmitted from the plane’s engines as part of the ACARS (Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System) programme, which monitors and transmits data including performance, location, altitude and air speed every 30 minutes. If ACARS transmissions continued as claimed, the plane could have flown up to 4,000km.
