Malaysian jet search now in Indian Ocean

KUALA LUMPUR — The needleina- haystack hunt for a missing Malaysian airliner spread to the vast Indian Ocean Friday after the White House cited "new information" that it might have flown for hours after vanishing nearly seven days ago.

Multiple US media reports, citing American officials, said the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777's communication system continued to "ping" a satellite for a number of hours after it disappeared off radar with 239 people aboard, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

" It's my understanding that based on some new information that's not necessarily conclusive, but new information, an additional search area may be opened in the Indian Ocean," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

" The USS Kidd is transiting the Strait of Malacca en route to the Indian Ocean," a US Navy official told AFP, referring to a guided- missile destroyer initially deployed to the Gulf of Thailand on the other side of Malaysia's coast.

It was the latest in a series of tantalizing leads that have pulled the search for flight MH370 in multiple directions and deepened what is fast becoming one of the biggest mysteries in modern aviation history.

"I can't think of any other incident like this where there is so little clue as to what actually happened," said Ravikumar Madavaram, an aerospace consultant at Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific.

The new thrust opens an additional search front of daunting magnitude. The Indian Ocean is the world's third largest with an average depth of nearly 3,900 meters (12,800 feet).

It is like going "from a chessboard to a football field", Commander William Marks of the US 7th Fleet told CNN.

Marks insisted the search remained coordinated with the Malaysian authorities and that the US Navy was "not out here freelancing".