Missing jet may have disintegrated - source
(Agencies) Updated: 2014-03-10 08:40
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| Malaysia Airlines holds press conference |
FOUR SUSPECTS
Malaysian Transport Minister Hishamuddin Hussein said authorities were also checking the identities of two other passengers. He said help was also being sought from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). However, an attack was only one of the possibilities being investigated.
"We are looking at all possibilities," he said. "We cannot jump the gun. Our focus now is to find the plane."
The 11-year-old Boeing 777-200ER, powered by Rolls-Royce Trent engines, took off at 12:40 a.m. on Saturday(1640 GMT Friday) from Kuala Lumpur International Airport, with 227 passengers and 12 crew on board.
It last had contact with air traffic controllers 120 nautical miles off the east coast of the Malaysian town of Kota Bharu. Flight tracking website flightaware.com showed it flew northeast after takeoff, climbed to 35,000 ft (10,670 metres) and was still climbing when it vanished from tracking records.
There were no reports of bad weather.
"What we have done is actually look into the recording on the radar that we have and we realised there is a possibility the aircraft did make a turnback," Rodzali Daud, the Royal Malaysian Air Force chief, told reporters at a news conference.
The search was being extended to the west coast of the Malay peninsula, in addition to a broad expanse of the sea between Malaysia and Vietnam, he said.
Vietnamese naval boats sent from the holiday island of Phu Quoc patrolled stretches of the Gulf of Thailand, scouring the area where an oil slick was spotted by patrol jets just before nightfall on Saturday.
Besides the Vietnamese vessels, Malaysia and neighbouring countries have deployed 34 aircraft and 40 ships in the search. China and the United States have sent ships to help, and Washington has also deployed a maritime surveillance plane.
U.S. officials from Boeing, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Federal Aviation Administration were on the way to Asia to help in investigations, NTSB said in a statement. Boeing said it was monitoring the situation but had no further comment.
Chinese rescue force reaches suspected site of missing plane
A Chinese coast guard vessel has entered the waters around the suspected site of the missing Malaysian plane to carry out a rescue mission. As of 11:30 am on Sunday, the vessel "China Coast Guard 3411" has entered the area and was about 45 nautical miles from where the plane was believed to be when it lost contact with ground control, according to China's State Oceanic Administration.
