Missing MH370: Pakistan dismisses reports plane was in its territory

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's top aviation official on Saturday dismissed Western media reports that the missing Malaysia Airlines plane might be hidden somewhere in the country.

"It’s wrong, plane never came towards Pakistan," special assistant to the Prime Minister on Aviation Shujaat Azeem told Dawn.com.

His attention was drawn on the reports which said the disappeared plane could have potentially reached as far as Pakistan.

"Pakistan's civil aviation radars never spotted this jet, so how it could be hidden somewhere in Pakistan?"he said.

Azeem said the plane disappeared far away from Pakistani air space and was not visible on its radars,

However, he said that his division was on alert and following all developments related to the incident.

"At present there are 95 ships of various countries are in the Indian Ocean on search mission," said Azeem.

"No one among those who are on search mission has contacted us to seek information on this tragedy."

 The advisor said that civil aviation would provide full cooperation when sought from Pakistan.

He said Pakistan’s national carrier has sent a message to Malaysian airline expressing sympathies with the relatives of those who have gone missing on this unfortunate flight.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak said on Saturday that communications aboard the missing jet were switched off and its course deliberately changed by someone on board before the aircraft disappeared a week ago.

He said that the plane could be headed to two possible corridors, which were; "a northern corridor stretching approximately from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to northern Thailand, or a southern corridor stretching approximately from Indonesia to the southern Indian ocean". - Dawn/ANN