- NEW: Vietnam says it's scaling back its searches Wednesday
- NEW: Information from Malaysian authorities is "insufficient," a Vietnamese official says
- A Malaysian air force official tells CNN that the plane showed up on radar after it lost contact
- The plane flew way off course, heading in the wrong direction, the official says
(CNN) -- The families of the passengers and crew members on board the Malaysian airliner that disappeared more than four days ago are desperately waiting for answers about what happened.
But so far, most of the scraps of information that have come to light have only created confusion and bafflement.
The latest twist in the mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which vanished early Saturday over Southeast Asia, involves the path the plane may have taken after it lost contact with air traffic control.
A senior Malaysian air force official on Tuesday told CNN that after the plane lost all communications around 1:30 a.m. Saturday, it still showed up on radar for more than an hour longer. Before it vanished altogether, the plane apparently turned away from the direction of its intended destination, Beijing, and traveled hundreds of miles off course, the official said.
It was last detected, according to the official, near Pulau Perak, a very small island in the Straits of Malacca, the body of water between the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
Those assertions have fueled surprise among aviation analysts and a fresh burst of theories about what might have happened to the plane. They also appear to have created tensions between some of the different countries involved in the search efforts.
Uncertainty over exact path
But some Malaysian officials have reportedly cast doubt on the details of the change in direction.
The New York Times cited Tengku Sariffuddin Tengku Ahmad, spokesman for the Prime Minister's office, as saying that he had checked with senior military officials, who told him there was no evidence that the plane had flown back over the Malay Peninsula to the Straits of Malacca, only that it may have attempted to turn back.
The Prime Minister's office didn't immediately return calls from CNN seeking comment Wednesday.
But the air force chief Gen. Rodzali Daud didn't go as far as denying that the plane had traveled hundreds of miles off course.
The air force is still "examining and analyzing all possibilities as regards to the airliner's flight paths subsequent to its disappearance," he said in a statement Wednesday.
Daud said it "would not be appropriate" for the air force to "issue any official conclusions as to the aircraft's flight path until a high amount of certainty and verification is achieved."
He denied, though, that he had made statements to a Malaysian newspaper similar to those that the senior air force official made to CNN.
Searchers find no trace
The reported change of course would fit in with some of the areas that search and rescue teams have been combing over the past several days.
Dozens of ships and planes from various countries have been searching the sea between the northeast coast of Malaysia and southwest Vietnam, the area where the plane lost contact with air traffic controllers.
But they have also been looking off the west coast of the Malay Peninsula, in the Straits of Malacca, and north into the Andaman Sea -- areas that would tally with a change of direction by the plane.
So far, though, searchers have found no confirmed trace of the plane anywhere.
Vietnam scales back searches
And Vietnamese authorities, who have been heavily involved in the search, appeared to be showing increasing frustration with the information coming from the Malaysian side.
"We have scaled down the searches for today and are still waiting for the response from Malaysian authorities," Phan Quy Tieu, Vietnam's vice minister of transportation, told reporters Wednesday.
Vietnam informed Malaysian authorities that the plane was turning westward at the time it disappeared, he said.
"Up until now we only had one meeting with a Malaysian military attache," Phan said. "However, the information they have provided is insufficient."
For the moment, Vietnamese teams will stop searching the sea south of Ca Mau province, the southern tip of Vietnam, and shift the focus to areas east of Ca Mau, said Doan Luu, the director of international affairs at the Vietnamese Civil Aviation Authority.
Doan also told CNN that Vietnam has asked Malaysian authorities to clarify which location is the focus of their search, but that it has yet to hear back.
Families of those on board the plane also want to know more.
"Time is passing by," a middle-aged man shouted at an airline agent in Beijing on Tuesday. His son, he said, was one of the passengers aboard the plane.
Most of those on the flight were Chinese. And for their family members, the wait has been long and anguished.
Analysts puzzled
The possibility that the plane changed direction and flew over the Straits of Malacca has perplexed aviation experts.
Peter Goelz, former managing director of the National Transportation Safety Board, said he thinks the information, if correct, ominously suggests that someone purposefully cut off the transponder -- which sends data on altitude, direction and speed -- and steered the plane from its intended destination.
"This kind of deviation in course is simply inexplicable," Goelz said.
Other experts aren't convinced that there was necessarily foul play involved. They say there could have been some sort of sudden catastrophic electronic failure that spurred the crew to try to turn around, with no luck.
"Perhaps there was a power problem," said veteran pilot Kit Darby, former president of Aviation Information Resources, adding that backup power systems would only last about an hour. "(It is) natural for the pilot, in my view, to return to where he knows the airports."
Still, while they have theories, even those who have piloted massive commercial airliners like this one admit that they can't conclude anything until the plane is found. For now, the massive multinational search has yielded no breakthrough -- which has only added to the heartache for the friends and family of the 239 passengers and crew on board.
Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: What we know and don't know
Agonized families await answers over missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
CNN's Khushbu Shah, Michael Pearson and Kathy Quiano, and journalist Ivy Sam contributed to this report.
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