Vietnam downgrades search for missing jet
Vietnam says it has downgraded its search for the missing airliner in the South China Sea and has been asked by Malaysian authorities to consider sending planes and ships to the Strait to Malacca.
The statement is a sign that the focus of the search effort is switching to the west of Malaysia, to the strait and further west into the Indian Ocean.
It follows remarks by a US official that the Boeing 777 sent signals to a satellite for four hours after the aircraft went missing early on Saturday. If that is true, then it vastly expands the area where the lost jet might be.
Vietnam search spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Ngoc Son said the status of the hunt has switched from “emergency to regular”.
Malaysian authorities had earlier expanded their search into the Andaman Sea and beyond after acknowledging it could have flown for several more hours after its last contact with the ground.
That scenario would make finding the plane a vastly more difficult task, and raises the possibility that searchers were looking in the wrong place for the aircraft and its 229 passengers and crew.
In the latest in a series of false leads, planes were sent to search an area where satellite images published on a Chinese government website reportedly showed three suspected floating objects off the southern tip of Vietnam.
“There is nothing. We went there, there is nothing,” said acting Malaysian transport minister Hishammuddin Hussein.
Compounding the frustration, he later said the Chinese embassy had notified the government that the images were released by mistake and did not show debris from Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.
The plane was flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing early on Saturday when it lost contact with ground controllers and civilian radar.
The Wall Street Journal newspaper quoted US investigators as saying they suspected the plane remained in the air for about four hours after its last confirmed contact, citing data from the plane’s engines that are automatically transmitted to the ground as part of a routine maintenance programme.
Mr Hishammuddin said the government had contacted Boeing and Rolls-Royce, the engine manufacturer, and both said the last data was received at 1.07am – around 23 minutes before the plane lost contact.
But asked if it were possible that the plane kept flying for several hours, Mr Hishammuddin said: “Of course, we can’t rule anything out. This is why we have extended the search.”
He said the search had been widened into the Andaman Sea, and Malaysia is asking for radar data from neighbouring countries. India plans to deploy air and sea assets in the southern section of the sea to join the search.
Investigators have not ruled out any possible cause for the disappearance of the plane.
Experts say a massive failure knocking out its electrical systems, while unlikely, could explain why its transponders, which identify it to civilian radar systems and other planes nearby, were not working. Another possibility is that the pilot, or a passenger with some technical knowledge, switched off the transponders in the hope of flying undetected.
The jet had enough fuel to reach deep into the Indian Ocean.
Dozens of ships and aircraft from 12 nations have been searching the Gulf of Thailand and the strait, but no confirmed trace has been found. The search area has grown to 35,800 square miles – about the size of Portugal.
Experts say that if the plane crashed into the ocean then some debris should be floating on the surface, even if most of the jet is submerged. Past experience shows that finding the wreckage can take weeks or even longer, especially if the location of the plane is in doubt.
Malaysia’s air force chief said yesterday that an unidentified object appeared on military radar records about 200 miles north-west of Penang, Malaysia, and experts are analysing the data in an attempt to determine whether the blip is the missing plane.
More than two-thirds of those on board the plane were from China, and Beijing has voiced impatience at the absence of any results.
Chinese premier Li Keqiang said he would like to see better co-ordination among the countries involved in the search.
He said the passengers’ “families and friends are burning with anxiety, the Chinese government and Chinese people are all deeply concerned about their safety”.
He added: “As long as there is a glimmer of hope we will not stop searching for the plane.”
He said China had deployed eight ships and was using 10 satellites in the search.
