MH370 co-pilot tried phone call mid-flight, report says

The co-pilot of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 attempted to make a mid-flight call from his mobile phone just before the plane vanished from radar screens, a Malaysian newspaper reported yesterday, citing unnamed investigators.

The call ended abruptly possibly "because the aircraft was fast moving away from the [telecommunications] tower", the New Straits Times quoted a source as saying.

But the report also quoted another source saying that while Fariq Abdul Hamid's "line was reattached", there was no certainty that a call was made.

The report - titled a "Desperate call for help" - did not say whom he was trying to contact.

Meanwhile the search for the plane continued in the southern Indian Ocean as Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott appeared to step back from his comments on Friday when he voiced great confidence that signals from the "black box" had been detected.

Abbott repeated his confidence in the search, but stressed the difficulties remaining.