Plane search expands from Australia to Kazakhstan

KUALA LUMPUR - The search for the missing Malaysian jet pushed deep into the northern and southern hemispheres Monday as Australia took the lead in scouring the seas of the southern Indian Ocean and Kazakhstan - about 10,000 miles to the northwest - answered Malaysia's call for help in the unprecedented hunt.

French investigators arriving to lend expertise from the two-year search for an Air France jet that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009 said they were able to rely on distress signals - but investigators say the Malaysian airliner's communications links were deliberately severed ahead of its mysterious disappearance more than a week ago.

"It's very different from the Air France case. The Malaysian situation is much more difficult," Jean Paul Troadec, a special adviser to France's aviation accident investigation bureau, said in Kuala Lumpur.

Malaysian authorities say the jet carrying 239 people was purposely diverted from its flight path during an overnight flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, and suspicions has fallen on anyone aboard the plane with aviation experience, particularly the pilot and co-pilot.

Malaysian police confiscated a flight simulator from the pilot's home Saturday and also visited the home of the co-pilot, in what Malaysia's police chief Khalid Abu Bakar later said was the first police visits to those homes. The government issued a statement Monday contradicting that account by saying that police first visited the pilots' home on March 9, the day after the flight.

Investigators haven't ruled out hijacking or sabotage and are checking backgrounds of all 227 passengers and 12 crew members, as well as the ground crew, to see if links to terrorists, personal problems or psychological issues could be factors.

Malaysian Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said at a news conference Monday that an initial investigation indicates that the co-pilot, Fariq Abdul Hamid, spoke the fight's last words "All right, good night" to ground controllers.