Announcement: 'MH370 has been lost... none of those on board survived'

Malaysia Airlines has made an official statement that the missing plane has been deemed lost 'beyond any reasonable doubt'.

By Dave Lancaster |

14:08 24 March 2014

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has reported with "with great sadness" that data has now confirmed that the aircraft's last position was in the Indian Ocean south of Perth.

The families have now been told that the missing plane has been deemed lost and that the 239 people on board have most likely died.

This is the text message that was delivered to the relatives of those on board: "Malaysia Airlines deeply regrets that we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those on board survived.

"As you will hear in the next hour from Malaysia's Prime Minister, we must now accept all evidence suggests the plane went down in the Southern Indian Ocean."

The officials came to this conclusion via satellite technology and unprecedented analysis of what few clues they had.

The plane went missing after taking off from Kuala Lumpur on March 8th. It is still unclear what took place onboard to knock out the jet's tracking systems and whether or not it was hijacked by someone on the plane, it encountered technical problems, was downed by accident or was part of a wider conspiracy.