News: Confusing: Did the missing Malaysian plane pilot commit suicide? Why are passengers' cell phones still ringing?

Authorities are investigating the possibility that the pilot of the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH 370 committed suicide, the director of the CIA has revealed. John Brennan, head of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), said: 'I think you cannot discount any theory', when asked if it was possible the pilot deliberately crashed the Boeing 777. His intervention came as Malaysian police say they are carrying out psychological profiles of everyone on board the plane, which vanished on Saturday carrying 239 people after taking off from Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing.

 The theory could offer an explanation as to how the plane 'disappeared' from civilian radar tracking its movements, as the pilot could simply have switched off the transponder shortly before it vanished.Brennan also said that terrorism could not be ruled out in the disappearance of the airliner.'Could it just have been some kind of catastrophic event? I do not think people at this point should rule out any lines of inquiry.''I think there's a lot of speculation right now - some claims of responsibility that have not been, you know, confirmed or corroborated at all,' he said. He added that there were a host of unanswered questions including why the plane's transponder stopped emitting signals and what was the role of passengers carrying stolen passports. 'There are a number of very curious anomalies about all of this...You know, did it turn around? You know, were the individuals with these stolen passports in any way involved?'He added: 'What about the transponder? Why did it sort of, you know, just disappear from the radar?'

The former counter-terrorism adviser to President Barack Obama said there had been 'some claims of responsibility' over the missing jet that had 'not been confirmed or corroborated'. But when asked if he could rule out a terrorist link, Brennan said: 'No, I wouldn’t rule it out.'He said there were many unanswered questions about the Malaysia Airlines flight. He said: 'We are looking at it very carefully. Clearly this is still a mystery.'He added: 'I think at this point we again have to be patient and wait for the authorities to investigate.'There are many questions. Who had the ability to turn off the transponder? How can one such action be masked? Brennan's comments came at a rare public speaking appearance at an event in Washington organised by the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank.Earlier today relatives claimed they were able to call the cellphones of their missing loved ones.

 According to the Washington Post, family of some of the 239 people on board the vanished Boeing 777 said that they were getting ring tones and could see them active online through a Chinese social networking service called QQ.One man said that the QQ account of his brother-in-law showed him as online, but frustratingly for those waiting desperately for any news, messages sent have gone unanswered and the calls have not been picked up. This new eerie development comes as the Malaysian authorities said they had identified one of the men on two stolen European passports who were on the flight - and that he was not considered likely to be a terrorist. One man who had asked police to come to his house and see the active QQ account on his computer was devastated to see that by Monday afternoon it had switched to inactive.

According to China.org.cn, 19 families of those missing have signed a joint statement confirming that their calls connected to their loved ones but that they rang out.The relatives have asked for a full investigation and some complained that Malaysian Airlines is not telling the whole truth.The International Business Times reported that the sister of one of the Chinese passengers also rang his phone on live television.'This morning, around 11:40, I called my older brother's number twice, and I got the ringing tone,' said Bian Liangwei, sister of one of the passengers according to IBT.At 2pm, Bian called again and heard it ringing once more.'If I could get through, the police could locate the position, and there's a chance he could still be alive.'However, at a press conference in Beijing, Malaysian Airlines spokesman Ignatius Ong said one of the numbers that had been passed on to the airline's head office in Kuala Lumpur failed to get through.'

I myself have called the number five times while the airline's command center also called the number. We got no answering tone,' said Ong. Indeed, authorities hunting for the missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner expanded their search on land and sea Tuesday, reflecting the difficulties in locating traces of the plane more than three days after it vanished.Malaysia Airlines said in a statement the western coast of the country, near the Straits of Malacca, was 'now the focus' of the hunt. That is on the other side of peninsular Malaysia from where flight 370 was reported missing.