3 days and still no sign of plane
Print Edition
Disappearance an ‘unprecedented mystery’ says official as search area is widened in desperate hunt for missing jetliner and the 239 people on board
The disappearance of a Malaysian airliner about an hour into a flight to Beijing is an “unprecedented mystery,” the civil aviation chief said yesterday, as a massive air and sea search now in its third day failed to find any trace of the plane or its passengers.
Dozens of ships and aircraft from 10 countries scoured the seas around Malaysia and south of Vietnam.
The desperate search for the Malaysian jet which vanished carrying 239 people, including 154 Chinese, was significantly expanded yesterday as frustrations mounted over failure to find any trace of the plane.
The initial zone spread over a 50 nautical mile (92 kilometer) radius around the point where flight MH370 disappeared over the South China Sea in the early hours of Saturday morning, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
“The area of search has been expanded in the South China Sea,” Civil Aviation Department chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman told reporters.
He also confirmed the search area covers land on the Malaysian peninsula itself, the waters off its west coast and an area to the north of the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
Underlining the lack of hard information about the plane’s fate, a US Navy P-3 aircraft capable of covering 1,500 square miles every hour was sweeping the northern part of the Strait of Malacca, on the other side of the Malaysian peninsula from where the last contact with MH370 was made.
The huge area now being covered reflects authorities’ bafflement over the disappearance of the flight, with rescue ships and more than 30 planes finding no sign of it.
With no confirmation that the Boeing 777 had crashed, hundreds of distraught relatives waited anxiously for any news.
Thai police and Interpol questioned the proprietors of a travel agency in the resort town of Pattaya that sold one-way tickets to two men now known to have been traveling on flight MH370 using stolen passports.
There has been no indication that the two men had anything to do with the tragedy, but the thefts of the passports fueled speculation of foul play, terrorism or a hijacking gone wrong. Malaysia has shared their details with Chinese and American intelligence agencies.
Experts say possible causes of the apparent crash include an explosion, catastrophic engine failure, terrorist attack, extreme turbulence, pilot error or even suicide.
There have been a few glimmers of hope, but so far no trace of the plane has been found.
On Sunday afternoon, a Vietnamese plane spotted a rectangular object that was thought to be one of the missing plane’s doors, but ships working through the night could not locate it.
Then yesterday, a Singaporean search plane spotted a yellow object some 140 kilometers southwest of Tho Chu island, but it turned out to be some sea trash.
Malaysian maritime officials found some oil slicks in the South China Sea and sent a sample to a lab to see if it came from the plane.
Tests showed that the oil was not from an aircraft, Azharuddin said.
As relatives of the 239 people on the flight grappled with fading hope, attention focused on how two passengers managed to board the aircraft using stolen passports.
Interpol confirmed it knew about the stolen passports but said no authorities checked its vast databases on stolen documents.
Azharuddin said the baggage of five passengers who had checked in to the missing flight but did not board was removed before it departed.
Airport security was strict according to international standards, surveillance has been done and the airport has been audited, he said.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
