Malaysia Widens Search for the Missing Jet Towards India

Amidst the huge search operations for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the authorities have expanded their search westward toward India on Thursday citing that it could have flown for several hours after it lost contact with the ground.

The Boeing 777 with more than two hundred people on board went missing over the skies of South East Asia, early on Saturday during its commute from Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, to Beijing. Thirty-four planes, forty ships and search crews from ten countries are continuing the search and rescue operations in a large portion of the South China Sea near where the plane was last detected. Malaysian Airline has given the last location of the flight as 065515 North (longitude) and 1033443 East (latitude) before it vanished off the radar.

Amidst the speculations about the missing passenger jet, the false Chinese satellite images published on a Chinese government website reportedly showing three suspected floating objects compounded the fear. The images were released by mistake, said the acting Malaysian transport minister Hishammuddin Hussein.

A senior Indian official said that India was planning to deploy airplanes and ships in the southern section of the sea. Malaysia’s air force chief had said on Wednesday that an unidentified object appeared on military radar records about 200 miles northwest of Penang, Malaysia, and that the data was being analyzed to determine whether it belonged to missing jet.

Infoeditor