Search efforts continue over an area the size of Hungary
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LATEST trace puts missing aircraft hundreds of kilometers from where previously thought
Malaysia’s military has traced what could have been the jetliner missing for almost five days to an area south of the Thai holiday island of Phuket, hundreds of kilometers from its last known position, the country’s air force chief said yesterday.
After a series of at times conflicting statements, the latest revelation underlined that authorities remain uncertain about where to look for the plane, and no closer to explaining what happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 or the 239 people on board.
The flight disappeared from civilian radar screens shortly before 1:30am on Saturday, less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur, as it flew northeast across the mouth of the Gulf of Thailand bound for Beijing. What happened next is one of the most baffling mysteries in modern aviation history.
Malaysian air force chief Rodzali Daud told a news conference that an aircraft was plotted on military radar at 2:15am, 320 kilometers northwest of Penang Island off Malaysia’s west coast.
It was not confirmed that the unidentified plane was Flight MH370, but Malaysia was sharing the data with international civilian and military authorities, Rodzali said.
“We are corroborating this,” he added. “We are still working with the experts, it’s an unidentified plot.”
According to data from Rodzali, if it was the missing plane it would have flown for 45 minutes and lost only about 1,500 meters in altitude. There was no word as to which direction it was headed and still no clue what happened on board, prolonging the agonizing wait for news for hundreds of relatives.
A position 320 kilometers northwest of Penang, in the northern part of the Strait of Malacca, would put the plane roughly south of Phuket and east of the tip of Indonesia’s Aceh Province and India’s Nicobar island chain. Indonesia and Thailand have said their militaries detected no sign of any unusual aircraft in their airspace.
The position is hundreds of kilometers west of the point where the Boeing 777 dropped off air traffic control screens. Malaysia has asked India for help in tracing the aircraft and New Delhi’s coast guard planes have joined the search.
Authorities, however, are continuing to search around both locations — at the last known position of the plane over the Gulf of Thailand and around the radar plotting site where the Malacca Strait meets the Andaman Sea.
In total, the search is over 93,000 square kilometers, an area the size of Hungary or Indiana.
Until now, there has been no confirmed sighting of the plane or any debris. A dozen countries are helping Malaysia in the search, with 42 ships and 39 aircraft involved, Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said.
“My heart reaches out to the families of the passengers and crew,” he said. “And I give you my assurance we will not reduce the tempo and that we will not spare any effort to find the missing plane.”
Malaysia has been criticized for giving conflicting and confusing information on the last known location of the aircraft.
Earlier yesterday, Rodzali had denied saying military radar had tracked MH370 flying over the Strait of Malacca.
Vietnam briefly scaled down search operations in waters off its southern coast, saying it was receiving scanty and confusing information from Malaysia over where the aircraft may have headed after it lost contact. Hanoi later said the search was back on and extending onto land. China also said its air force would sweep areas in the sea, but said no land searches were planned.
“As long as the plane is not found, we would continue doing our mission,” Vo Van Tuan, spokesman for Vietnam Search and Rescue Committee, told reporters in Hanoi.
“We should always keep up hope, there can be miracles, humans can survive for a long time in difficult conditions. We must not give up hope that the missing people are still alive.”
In the absence of any concrete evidence to explain the plane’s disappearance, authorities have ruled nothing out. Police have said they were investigating whether any passengers or crew on the plane had personal or psychological problems that might shed light on the mystery, along with the possibility of a hijacking, sabotage or mechanical failure.
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