Did missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 land in the pirate-infested Malacca Strait?

THE Malacca Strait, where MH370 was thought to have gone down, is infested with oil-hungry pirates, with outlaws hijacking three ships since March 6.

IF missing flight MH370 had landed - whether in one piece or not - in the Malacca Strait, you can bet that looting pirates would have got there first.

The notorious waterway is infested with pirates and has been for centuries, with outlaws hijacking two oil tankers as recently as this week.

An Indonesia air force officer shows a map of Malacca Strait during a briefing at Suwondo air base in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia, Authorities hunting for the missing Boeing 777 have expanded their search areas to cover land and sea.

Early yesterday Malaysian air force chief General Rodzali Daud claimed the missing plane, which had 239 people on board, made it to the Malacca Strait after inexplicably changing course less than an hour after taking off.

He was quoted as saying the RMAF Butterworth air base had detected the location signalling the vicinity of the island of Pulau Perak at "2.40 in the morning before the signal disappeared without any trace".

The Malacca Strait is a dangerous area.

General Daud has since refuted that statement but considering the confusion and backtracking that has characterised this search, the Malacca Strait should still be considered as valid a crash zone as any other.

DID MH370 CHANGE COURSE?

After years of relative calm thanks to increased patrols by anti-piracy ships and cooperation between neighbouring countries, the notorious waterway has seen a recent surge in pirate-related activity, according to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB).

"Attacks are going up and they should put a stop to it before it gets out of control," Noel Chung, head of IMB's piracy reporting centre warned Malaysian maritime authorities in November.

It's no wonder; more oil is being transported via the straits than ever. And oil is what the pirates are after. In 2011, an average of 15.2 million barrels of oil a day were transported along the waterway. About 90 per cent of that was crude.

GENERAL DENIAL: SEARCH THROWN INTO MORE CONFUSION

The waterway, which connects the Indian Ocean with the South China Sea and Pacific Ocean, is one of the world's two "most strategic chokepoints" for oil trade along with the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf.

Pirates have so far attacked three ships this month. According to Ship and Bunker, two occurred on March 6, when the MT Sea Voyager and the MT Orpheas, both oil tankers headed for Karimun Kecil Island in Indonesia, were boarded by pirates just half an hour apart.

Members of the Sea Voyager's crew were held at knifepoint by four armed pirates, but sounded an alarm and drove the attackers off.

In the attack on the Orpheus, pirates managed to escape with ship parts.

On March 10, the bulk carrier MT Cape Veni was approached by pirates in a motorboat on southwest of Nipa Island, but the attackers fled after an alarm was sounded.

Last year there were more than 100 attacks by pirates, according to the IMB.