so could it have hit the plane? given what we know about the erratic flight path, highly unlikely. and then there s the idea of the miraculous might have happened, that the plane somehow landed near the rocky outcrop of an island called pulau perak and the passengers are still alive. a close look at the island shows how forbidding the place really is. and the approach to the rocky coast would be treacherous. and the steep walls would make the idea of anyone climbing from the wreckage to safely ex exceedingly difficult. you can see structuring at the summit of the island. is there anyone inside? doubtful. but it does give the families and loved ones of the passengers a place to put their hope. pamela brown joins us now. the lack of information and the conflicting stories coming from the malaysian government, that s obviously driving some of these stories. people come up with their own theories as to what happened. reporter: that s certainly sort of fuelling the fire. people honing i
plane was last seen hundreds of miles away from where it was supposed to be. now, what s interesting here, initially, in the first reports, the malaysians were saying that this plane disappeared from the radar at 2:40. they then scaled that back and said it actually disappeared about an hour earlier. what s happened is that those transponders we ve been talking about, they re the ones that switched off about abhour into the flight and then the plane turned, flew across malaysia and was last seen at 2:40 over this small island called pulau perak. our information is coming to us from an unnamed source, a very senior source in the malaysian air force. but they re still not saying officially what s happened. this turn-back theory has been around for a couple of days, but it s only been a theory.