Malaysia’s military says its radar data shows that Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 the plane might have been flying more than an hour after its transponders stopped giving the flight’s location over the South China Sea.  The radar showed it essentially reversed course and flew southwest over the Strait of Malacca.

The Boeing 777-200 was supposed to travel from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, but went missing on Saturday along with 239 people on board including six Australians.  Malaysian authorities initially said it went missing about an hour into the flight, when the transponder stopped broadcasting its altitude, location, direction and speed.

But now the Malaysian Air Force says its radar lost track of the plane over Pulau Perak, a tiny island in the Strait of Malacca.  That’s many hundreds of kilometers off course and in the opposite direction from its scheduled destination Beijing.  The plane also dropped to a lower altitude, from 10,670 to 9,000 Meters.

Malaysia has now extended the search area to include five sectors in the Malacca Strait and Andaman Sea.