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Last words from missing Malaysian jet spoken by co-pilot

“Only the Malaysia government knows the truth. They’ve been talking nonsense since the beginning,” said Wen Wancheng, whose son was on Flight 370.

At Monday’s press briefing, Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein reacted angrily when a foreign journalist suggested Malaysia should apologise for its handling of the crisis.

“I think it is very irresponsible of you to say that,” he shot back.

Twenty-six countries are now involved in searching for the jet after satellite and military radar data projected two dauntingly large corridors the plane might have flown through.

The northern corridor stretches in an arc over south and central Asia, while the other swoops deep into the southern Indian Ocean towards Australia.

Satellite and radar data from countries in the northern corridor should allow investigators to confirm within “two or three days” whether it crashed in that area, a foreign member of the investigative team told AFP.

Malaysia announced that it was deploying its navy and air force to the southern corridor, where Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said his country would take the lead in searching a vast area off its west coast.

Three officials from France’s civil aviation accident investigation agency arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Monday to share their experiences of the search for Air France Flight 447, which crashed in the Atlantic Ocean in 2009.

The “black boxes” from that crash were eventually recovered nearly two years later from a depth of more than 3,800 meters (12,500 feet).

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Malaysian police have searched both pilots’ homes and are examining a flight simulator that Captain Zaharie, 53, had assembled at his home.

Associates say Zaharie was an active supporter of Malaysia’s political opposition headed by veteran politician Anwar Ibrahim.

In a highly controversial case, Anwar was convicted of sodomy – illegal in Muslim Malaysia – just hours before MH370 took off.

But friends said Zaharie exhibited no extreme views.

Fariq, meanwhile, was accused in an Australian television report of allowing two young South African women into the cockpit of a plane he piloted in 2011, breaching security rules imposed after the 9/11 attacks in the United States.

But acquaintances have attested to his good character, and reports said he planned to wed his flight-school sweetheart.

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