Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 remains a mystery in latest investigative report

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared in March 2014, was deliberately diverted after communications with the plane halted, possibly by the “intervention of a third party,” according to a report Monday by an independent international team.

But the 19-member team said the precise cause of the disappearance can’t be determined until the plane’s data and voice recorders are found. The report found no evidence of abnormal behavior of stress in the pilots.

“We are not of the opinion that it could be an event committed by the pilot,” chief investigator Kok Soo Chon Kok told reporters. “We cannot rule out unlawful interference by a third party,” such as someone holding the pilots hostage, he said.

Kok said it was up to police to investigate.

The Boeing 777-200 disappeared March 8, 2014, without a distress call while carrying 239 people from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Radar tracked the plane turning back toward Malaysia but then lost track of it after standard communications equipment stopped signaling less than an hour into the flight.

Satellite tracking of communications signals suggested to experts that the plane flew for more than seven hours over the remote Indian Ocean before running out of fuel and crashing into the water. More than 20 pieces of the plane have washed up on beaches in the Indian Ocean and Africa.

But the main wreckage hasn't been found after years of searches by governments of Australia, Malaysia and China and a private search by the Texas company Ocean Infinity.

Contributing: The Associated Press

WPXI