Malaysia Airlines only tried to contact missing flight MH370 twice over six hours

Flight MH370 has now been missing for more than 100 days [REUTERS]

Australian news website news.com.au said that the revelation came from a close examination of a 55-page report by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) into the disappearance of the plane.

It claimed that the report also showed that no one in the cockpit used aircraft waypoints to set the Boeing 777's course south over the Indian Ocean.

This would seem to quash suspicions that pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah had pre-programmed the jet to crash.

It does not, however, rule out the possibility that someone used the autopilot to send the plane south.

Pilots on MH370 made their final contact with ground staff at 1.22am on March 8 but it was another hour and 17 minutes before another attempt was made to ring the plane’s satellite phone.

Despite the lack of response, no further attempts were made for another five hours.

Veteran serving Qantas pilot Richard Woodward was quoted as saying that "five hours is a long time" not to try to make contact.

He told news.com.au: “You’d be trying every available means. 

"I’m absolutely surprised there’s only two attempts to call on the satellite phone.

“If you’d lost contact with an airliner you’d be calling them on every frequency. You’d definitely be trying to call them on the satellite phone (as well as VHF and HF and by data link, similar to SMS).”

The news comes after ATSB investigators claimed earlier this week that it is likely that those aboard missing the plane most likely died from suffocation and coasted lifelessly into the ocean on autopilot.

Investigators claimed: "Given these observations, the final stages of the unresponsive crew/hypoxia event type appeared to best fit the available evidence for the final period of MH370's flight when it was heading in a generally southerly direction."

Australian officials also announced that the search zone would be shifting further south into the Indian Ocean.

Flight MH370, which was carrying carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, vanished en route from Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, China.

The aircraft had last contact with air traffic controllers 120 nautical miles off the east coast of the Malaysian town of Kota Bharu.

Teams have been searching for the plane for more than 100 days now, but so far not a single piece of debris has been identified.