Maneno ya mwisho ya rubani wa ndege iliyopotea

The final words heard by Malaysian air traffic controllers from the cockpit of missing flight MH370 were 'All right, good night', it has been revealed.

One of the pilots is reported to have made the comment over radio transmission as the plane passed from Malaysian to Vietnamese airspace.

The flight is then said to have disappeared from radar screens following the comment. The news comes as the first photograph of pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah has emerged.

Zaharie Ahmad Shah, a 53-year-old Malaysian, who was one of the pilots of the Malaysia Airlines plane that remains missing

Indonesian Air Force personnel aboard an Indonesian Air Force military surveillance aircraft over the Malacca Strait as they search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370

Malaysian civil aviation officials revealed the comment while speaking to passengers' relatives and friends at a Beijing hotel, The Straits Times has reported.

The search for the jetliners, which vanished on a flight between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing early Saturday morning, was expanded further into the Andaman and South China Seas today, with authorities no closer to explaining what happened to the plane or the 239 people on board.

A senior Malaysia Airlines executive also said today that the airline has 'no reason to believe' that any actions by the crew caused the disappearance of a jetliner over the weekend.

'And not only would that have been unusual, but it also would have meant you'd have to walk by our cabin crew as well, and have the code to get through. So I'm dubious, but I'm going to let the authorities investigate and tell us what happened.'

The airline earlier said it was taking seriously the report by the woman, Jonti Roos, who said in an interview with Australia's Channel Nine TV that she and her friend were invited to fly in the cockpit by Fariq and the pilot of a flight between Phuket, Thailand, and Kuala Lumpur in December 2011.

Jonti Roos (centre) claims she and her friend were entertained by Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27, who is one of the pilots of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight (right)

The TV channel showed pictures of the four apparently in a plane's cockpit.

The airline will give $5,000 per passenger to cover hotel expenses of relatives awaiting news, Dunleavy added.

Daily Mail