Timeline: The search for MH370
March 8th
00:41 the Boeing 777 leaves Kuala Lumpur, due to arrive in Beijing at 06:30, there are 227 passengers and 12 Malaysia Airlines crew.
01:19 the co-pilot says "all right, good night", the last message heard from the plane, to Malaysian air traffic control.
02:15 the plane is spotted south of the island of Phuket off Malaysia's west coast, hundreds of miles from its original flight path.
08:11 the last recorded satellite signal from the plane puts it in a vast area stretching from the southern Indian Ocean to the border of Kazakhstan.
March 9th Attention focuses on two Iranian passengers travelling on stolen passports, with some reports suggesting a possible terrorist attack, although this is later ruled out.
March 14th The search area shifts after new satellite 'pings' appear to show the plane carried on flying for five hours after the last contact was made.
March 15th The Malaysian Prime Minister says "deliberate action" by someone on board led to the transponder being switched off.
March 16th Suspicion shifts to the pilot, Captain Zaharie Shah, amid suggestions he held anti-government views.
A friend of the pilot told ITV News China Correspondent, Lucy Watson, that Shah was just a "normal, typical Malaysian" and was not "obsessed" with politics.
March 20th Anothr lead as satellites pick up two more big pieces of possible wreckage off the Australian coast.
March 23rd French satellite spots large debris floating in the Indian Ocean in the southern search corridor over 1,000 miles off Perth.
March 24th Malaysia's Prime Minister says it is now "beyond any doubt" that the plane went down over the Indian Ocean and all on board have died.
March 28th Australia's Maritime Safety Authority tweets that the search area has shifted almost 700 miles north following new information.
March 31st Ten planes and ten ships, including seven Chinese vessels, search an area around 1,200 miles off the coast of Perth.
April 4th The search heads underwater, with a US Navy high tech "pinger" locator deployed as the battery life of the plane's black box dwindles.
April 7th Air Marshal Angus Houston hails the "best information" since the start of the search after a 'pinger' detects two signals "consistent with a black box".
Read: MH370 search: Signals detected 'consistent with black box'