House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) on Sunday said Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 is likely at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, but nothing can yet be ruled out.
Malaysian officials have said the search has greatly expanded. Twenty-five different countries are now involved, and the search area includes the ocean and land along 11 different countries.
“This plane still may be at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, and I think a lot folks that I talk to believe that is probably the most likely, the most probable, circumstance — that it is in fact at the bottom of the Indian Ocean,” he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “But you cannot quite yet rule out everything else because we don’t have the physical evidence we need to come to that conclusion.”
{mosads}While Rogers said it is the most likely scenario, investigators will still have to follow every lead, even if they are likely to hit dead ends.
“There is still investigation to be had,” he said. “They are going to have to do a thorough investigation of everyone on the airplane now to make some determination.”
According to reports, the homes of the two pilots of the Boeing 777 were searched Saturday.
Flight 370 was deliberately flown off course after the plane’s communication system and transponder were switched off, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said Saturday.
The prime minister said the search had entered a new phase on Saturday. Authorities focused their attention on the crew and passengers on board, he said.
The last known communication with the plane came either in a corridor between Turkmenistan and northern Thailand, or south from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.
The flight, which went missing a week ago, was carrying 239 people, including three Americans. It was initially thought to have crashed in the South China Sea. But with new information, those searches have been called off.