Crew member made desperate call from missing Malaysia Airline flight MH370

In a latest breakthrough in Malaysia Airlines flight MH370's criminal investigation it has been reportedly revealed that a crew member from the plane made a desperate call from his mobile phone on the morning it went missing.

The call, which was reportedly made as the plane was flying low near Penang, has been traced to co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid's phone.

According to The New Straits Times, investigators are carefully going through this discovery as they try to piece together what had happened to the Boeing 777-22ER twinjet moments before it went off the radar, about 320 kilometres northwest of Penang on March 8.

Speculations are that the aircraft with 239 people on board was flying low enough for the nearest telecommunications tower to pick up Hamid phone's signal.

However, Hamid's call ended abruptly, but not before contact was established with a telecommunications sub-station in the state.

Experts have reportedly revealed that it was possible for a mobile phone to be connected to a telecommunications tower at an altitude of 7,000 feet and investigators revealed that the jetliner had dropped to as low as 5,000 feet.

The plane made the turnback at waypoint Igari in the South China Sea before it crossed Peninsular Malaysia heading towards Penang, the report added.