‘No-one has survived’ : Families of passengers on board flight MH370 are sent text message stating relatives are assumed dead

The families of passengers on board flight MH370 were texted earlier today and told that their relatives are assumed to have died.

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by Ellie Hooper |
Published on

'We have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those on board survived' read the message from the airline.

'Malaysia Airlines deeply regrets that we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those on board survived. As you will hear in the next hour from Malaysia's Prime Minister, we must now accept all evidence suggests the plane went down in the Southern Indian Ocean.'

CNN got hold of a screen grab of one of the text messages, apparently sent to family members before they were briefed in person

Relatives received the message ahead of a briefing from Malaysia's Prime Minister, Najib Razak, who re-iterated the airline's position.

He added that thanks to innovative satellite technology used by Britain, authorities were able to make more specific calculations about the plane's last whereabouts.

'We have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those on board survived'

Its last known location was confirmed as somewhere west of Perth, Australia, in the Southern Indian Ocean - close to where debris was spotted days before.

The Malaysian PM urged people to accept that due to the lack of 'any possible landing sites' in the region, the plane must've gone down into the sea, with all passengers on board perishing.

He said: 'This evening, I was briefed by representatives from the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch or AAIB. They informed me that Inmarsat, the UK company that provided the satellite data which indicated the northern and southern corridors has been performing further calculations on the data using a type of analysis never before used in an investigation of this sort.'

'Flight MH370 ended in the Southern Indian Ocean'

'They have been able to shed more light on the location of 370's flight path. Based on the new analysis, Inmarsat and UK AAIB have concluded that MH370 flew along the southern corridor and that its last position was in the middle of the Indian Ocean, west of Perth.'

'This is a remote location, far from any possible landing sites. It is therefore with deep sadness, I regret that I must inform you that according to this new data, flight MH370 ended in the Southern Indian Ocean.'

The Malaysia Airlines flight, which was travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, had 239 people on board when it disappeared in between Malaysian and Vietnamese air space on March 8.

There have been several potential debris spots over the past two weeks, but none of them have of yet been found to belong to the aircraft.

Today, ten planes scoured the Southern Indian Ocean, where some possible debris was spotted from a satellite.

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