Thai Air Force radar detects plane, shares data with Malaysia

Thai Air Force today said its radar had detected a passenger plane - might be the missing jet - that departed from Malaysia and diverted.

The Malaysia Airlines plane to Beijing "could then have flown to the Straits of Malacca", Thai Air Force chief ACM Prajin Juntong said.

A Thai Air Force radar station in Surat Thani detected a aircraft that departed from Malaysia but diverted and passed the port city of Butterworth, Malaysia, Juntong was quoted as saying by The National newspaper.

He, however, said it has yet to be confirmed whether the aircraft detected by the Surat Thani radar station was actually the Flight MH370 that vanished 11 days ago. He was silent on exactly at time Thai radar last detected the plane.

Malaysian authorities have said the evidence suggests the airliner was deliberately flown off course, turning westward and travelling back over the Malay Peninsula and out into the Indian Ocean.

Juntong said he would have the information handed over to Malaysian Air Force.

His comment came 10 days after the plane carrying 227 passengers, including five Indians and one Indian-Canadian, and 12 crew members mysteriously vanished from radar screens an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur.

There has been no trace of the plane nor any sign of wreckage despite a search by the navies and military aircraft of 13 countries across Southeast Asia.