Malaysia plane search: Hunt continues after 'debris' sighted

 

Sea search for Malaysia jet 'debris'

A multinational team searching for a missing Malaysia Airlines jet are investigating possible debris spotted in the sea south of Vietnam.

Vietnamese navy planes have reported seeing what could be fragments from Flight MH370, which vanished almost two days ago with 239 people on board.
Relatives of the missing passengers have been told by the authorities to prepare for the worst.
There is still no indication of what happened to the plane.

An investigation into the cause of its disappearance is focusing on two passengers who boarded the flight using stolen passports.

Malaysian military officials said on Sunday that the plane, a Boeing 777-200ER, may have turned back from its scheduled route shortly before vanishing from radar screens, further deepening the mystery surrounding its fate.
Contact lost Flight MH730 left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing at 00:41 local time on Saturday (16:41 GMT on Friday). But radio contact was lost at 17:30 GMT, somewhere between Malaysia and Vietnam.
There are now 40 ships and 34 aircraft from nine different nations taking part in the search in the seas off Vietnam and Malaysia.
Late on Sunday, the Vietnamese authorities said two objects had been sighted in waters south of Vietnam which appeared to resemble aircraft parts, including a door.
It was in a similar area to a possible oil slick seen by Vietnamese navy planes on Saturday, but officials have cautioned that this too may be nothing to do with the disappearance of Flight MH370.

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The BBC's John Sudworth: "Family members have been told to prepare for the worst"

US Navy officials said their aircraft had not seen any debris associated with commercial aircraft wreckage.
Commander William Marks from the US Seventh Fleet, which is taking part in the search, told the BBC the difficulty was in covering such a large area, spanning hundreds of kilometres.
"Just from the air we can see things as small as almost the size of your hand, or a basketball. So it's not a matter of if we can see it - it's an extremely large area.
Officials say they still have no idea what happened to the aircraft.

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The BBC's Alice Budisatrijo describes the growing search effort

Antony Roman, a licensed commercial pilot and investigations expert, told the BBC that if the aircraft had suffered serious technical problems the night time conditions would have made a successful emergency landing over the sea "very, very unlikely".
Investigators are looking at all angles, including a possible terror attack. Counter-terrorism agencies and the FBI are involved in the operation.
The identities of some of the people onboard are being probed.
Malaysia's civil aviation chief, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, said five passengers booked on the flight did not board and their luggage was consequently removed.
International police agency Interpol has confirmed that two passengers were travelling on passports registered on its databases as stolen.

Ships have been waiting until dawn to investigate the reported debris

The passengers - travelling with Italian and Austrian passports stolen in Thailand years ago - had purchased their tickets at the same time from China Southern Airlines, which shared the flight with Malaysia Airlines.
They had consecutive ticket numbers and were both booked on the same onward flight from Beijing to Europe on Saturday.
Ronald Noble, the secretary general of Interpol, said in a statement that while it was too soon to speculate on any connection between the theft and the plane's disappearance, it was "clearly of great concern that any passenger was able to board an international flight using a stolen passport listed in Interpol databases".
He said no checks of Interpol's database had been made for either passport between the time they were stolen and the departure of the flight, and expressed frustration that few of Interpol's 190 member countries "systematically" search the database.

The passengers on the flight were of 14 different nationalities. Two-thirds were from China, while others were from elsewhere in Asia, North America and Europe.

China has sent a team of government officials to Kuala Lumpur to look into the case.
The BBC's John Sudworth in Beijing says relatives waiting for news are getting increasingly frustrated, saying they are not getting information in a timely manner.
They have complained that government officials have not visited the families, our correspondent adds.
Malaysia Airlines is the country's national carrier, flying nearly 37,000 passengers daily to some 80 destinations worldwide.
On Monday, shares in Malaysia Airlines fell 18% to a record low.

Link to source: http://www.bbc.com