From takeoff to final satellite signal - a timeline of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
It all began early Saturday morning - March 8.
Sometime after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 took off at 12:41 a.m., investigators believe someone re-programmed the plane's flight management system to turn away from its original flight plan. Then 26 minutes after take-off, the plane sent its last automatic maintenance data transmission to the airline.
At 1:19 a.m., the co-pilot, Fariq Hamid, told air traffic controllers in Malaysia, "All right, good night," as the plane moved toward Vietnamese airspace. They were the last words heard from the cockpit.
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Two minutes later, at 35,000 feet, the transponder was turned off. The plane went dark on civilian radar, and then made a left turn back toward Malaysia.
The Malaysian military tracked an unidentified object on its radar traveling west towards the Strait of Malacca. Authorities now believe that was Flight 370. At 2:15 a.m., it disappeared from the military radar, about 200 miles northwest of Penang.
That last satellite contact led authorities to dramatically expand the search area. Now there is a lot of focus on the south Indian Ocean. The National Transportation Safety Board is now helping Australian authorities pinpoint locations to search.
