The Pentagon has sent the warship USS Kidd to the Indian Ocean, following an indication that missing Malaysian Airlines plane could have crashed on Saturday in the area.

According to senior administration officials, the missing Malaysian flight continued to "ping" a satellite after it lost contact with radar, the ABC News reports.

The aircraft was equipped with an Airplane Health Management system which pings a satellite every hour. The number of pings would indicate how long the plane stayed aloft. It is not clear, however, whether the satellite pings also indicate the plane's location.

The new information has greatly expanded the potential search area into the Indian Ocean.

Meanwhile, it became clear that the shutdown of two communication systems happened separately on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 indicating that the plane did not disappear due to a catastrophic failure, the ABC news informs.

Investigators told ABC News that the two communication systems were "systematically shut down." meaning that there was manual intervention.

Malaysian transport minister rejected the latest reports on the missing plane's possible location, including the Chinese satellite photos, Thursday by saying they had been "released by accident", the Euronews reports.

He assured reporters that "Malaysia has nothing to hide" and the search efforts will continue to be focused on the South China Sea.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared with 239 passengers on board while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing early Saturday local time. The aircraft went off the radar south of Vietnam. Searches for any wreckage of the aircraft that might have crashed somewhere at sea have entered their seventh day.

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