Exclusive It WAS hijacked: Malaysian official says it's jet carrying 239 was seized by individual or group

Investigators say the missing Malaysia Airlines jet was hijacked, steered off-course and could have reached Pakistan.
A Malaysian government official said people with significant flying experience could have turned off the flight's communication devices.
The search operation has now been focused on two 'corridors', one which extends from  north west from Thailand to the Kazakstan-Turkmenistan border and the other which opens out into the southern Indian Ocean.
The representative said that hijacking theory was now 'conclusive', and police are now believed to be searching the home of pilot, Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah, in Kuala Lumpur.
While Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak refused to confirm that flight MH370 was taken over, he admitted 'deliberate action' on board the plane resulted in it changing course and losing connection with ground crews.
The plane's communication system was switched off as it headed west over the Malaysian seaboard and its last known location was pinpointed six-and-a-half hours later than first thought. 
 
 
The last radar contact was made along one of the corridors, seven hours and 31 minutes after take off, but the plane could have deviated further from these points.
The aircraft's fuel reserves mean it could have travelled as far as Pakistan, Sri Lanka or Australia in the other direction.
However, if it was diverted into the Indian Ocean, the task of the search teams becomes more difficult, as there are hundreds of uninhabited islands and the water reaches depths of around 23,000ft. 
US investigators have also not ruled out the possibility that the passengers are being held at an unknown location and suggest that faint 'pings' were being transmitted for several hours after the flight lost contact with the ground.
Malaysian authorities and others are urgently investigating the two pilots and 10 crew members, along with the 227 passengers on board.

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Probe: Police in Kuala Lumpur searched the home of Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, after news the plane was hijacked

Today, a police van with a large contingent of officers inside passed through a security gate at the entrance to the wealthy compound where father-of-three Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah lives with his wife Faisa.
Officers have parked outside the gate of his home in the upmarket suburb of the Malaysian capital throughout the week, but today it is believed a team of search specialist have actually entered the house.
They did not emerge from the gate at the entrance to the compound until two hours later.
In the house he has set up a flight simulator which is understood to have interested police following up one line of investigation - that he had used the equipment to practice making his real-life Boeing 777 ‘invisible’ by turning off all communications.
Police have already said they are looking into the psychological background of the other pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27, his family life and connections.


Mr Razak added authorities have not ruled out any possibilities in the international search for the plane, which now involves 14 countries, 43 ships and 58 aircraft.

'Clearly the search has entered a new phase. Over the last seven days, we have followed every lead and looked into every possibility,' Mr Razak said. 'For family and friends (of the passengers), we hope this new information brings us one step closer to finding the plane.'
The Boeing 777's communication with the ground was severed just under one hour into the flight on March 8 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
It has now been confirmed the plane turned back and crossed over the Malaysian peninsula after setting out on a northeastern path toward the Chinese capital.
Experts say signals from the plane shows it then continued flying for at least five hours in an unknown direction. The plane's messaging system and transponder were both deliberately cut off and with them all hopes of further tracking the plane. 
The disabling of the  Boeing 777's transponder and messaging system occurred around 12 minutes apart. Such a gap would be unlikely in the case of an in-flight catastrophe and gave authorities the clearest indication to date someone on-board was behind it.
The motive of the hijack is still not clear. No demands have been made and no groups have publicly claimed involvement in the disappearance.

Some experts have said that pilot suicide may be the most likely explanation for the disappearance, as was suspected in a SilkAir crash during a flight from Singapore to Jakarta in 1997 and an EgyptAir flight in 1999.
The already global search effort will now be expanded along the two large corridors outlined in his speech.
Developments, including the massive change in flightpath and subsequent radar detections, have ruled out the possibility of a huge mechanical failure.
The USS Kidd arrived in the Strait of Malacca late Friday afternoon. It uses a using a 'creeping-line' search method of following a pattern of equally spaced parallel lines in an effort to completely cover the area.
A P-8A Poseidon, the most advanced long range anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare aircraft in the world, will arrive Saturday. It has a nine-member crew and has advanced surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, the department of defense said in a statement.
 
Malaysia has come under fire for what has been described as a 'pretty chaotic' search, with China saying the overall search effort has consequently been mired in confusion after a series of false alarms, rumors and contradictory statements.
Meanwhile, the hijacking news will renew focus on the two pilots at the helm of the missing Malaysia Airlines passenger jet.
Despite the investigation, Malaysian officials and friends of the pilots have told MailOnline this week that there are no reasons to suspect either the Captain or co-pilot of having personal problems that would have resulted in them taking control of the aircraft.
The only known blot  on co-pilot Fariq's character appears to be the time 2011 when he invited two South African women into the cockpit when he and another officer flew a jet from Thailand to Malaysia.

In the days since the flight went missing, it has emerged that Shah was so passionate about flying he has is own flight simulator at home.
As the search continued for the missing Boeing 777, military radar suggested the plane was deliberately flown towards India's Andaman Islands.
Two sources familiar with the investigation said an unidentified aircraft - which investigators believe was flight MH370 - was plotted by military radar following a route between navigational waypoints.
This indicates that it was either being flown by the pilots or someone with knowledge of those waypoints, the sources said
The last plot on the military radar's tracking suggested the plane was flying towards India's Andaman Islands, a chain of isles between the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal, they said.
Waypoints are geographic locations, worked out by calculating longitude and latitude, that help pilots navigate along established air corridors.
India recently began searching hundreds of uninhabited islands in the Andaman Sea, using heat-seeking devices.
Two Indian air force reconnaissance planes began flying over the islands as a precaution, after they and two naval ships scoured the seas surrounding the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, according to spokesman Col. Harmit Singh of India's Tri-Services Command on the territory.
The archipelago that stretches south of Myanmar contains 572 islands covering an area of 720 by 52 kilometers. Only 37 are inhabited, with the rest covered in dense forests.