Kuala Lumpur - The Director General of Malaysia's Department of Civil Aviation said on Monday that all the objects spotted in the sea have not been confirmed as the debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines aircraft.
"Unfortunately ... we have not found anything that appears to be objects from the aircraft, let alone the aircraft itself," Dato ' Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, director general of the Department of Civil Aviation, said at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur.
Contact with the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was lost along with its radar signal at 1:20am Beijing time on Saturday, as it was flying over the Ho Chi Minh City air traffic control area in Vietnam. The flight was carrying 12 crew members and 227 passengers, including 154 Chinese.
Vietnamese authorities, Rahman added, have not confirmed the reported finding of some objects believed to come from Flight MH370.
Rahman said at present 34 aircraft and 40 ships from different countries including China, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the United States, Thailand, Australia, the Philippines, etc. are participating in the search and rescue over a wide area.
He added that Malaysia has collected the sample of the oil slicks found in the sea earlier and sent it to a laboratory to verify if it was from the missing plane and they will publicize the lab report immediately when it comes out.
Rahman said that every aspect of what could happen should be considered as it was speculated that maybe the plane was hijacked. As for two passengers boarding on the plane with false European passports were reported Asian looking, he said the investigation is ongoing and all the relevant videos will be gone through.
CEO of Malaysia Airlines Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said they will arrange two family members of each passenger to come to Kuala Lumpur immediately and up to five family members for each in total, all of them will be accommodated in Kuala Lumpur.
Rahman said he felt puzzled as well about what happened to the plane and more concrete evidence is needed, thus a lot of work has to be done.
Meanwhile, Chief of China's Maritime Search and Rescue Center He Jianzhong said on Monday the country has created a plan for the search and rescue of a missing Malaysia Airlines jet.
The search and rescue plan involves four patrol and rescue vessels and two naval warships. The search range of the six ships has also been clarified.
Chinese warship Mianyang and a marine police vessel with hull number 3411 have begun searching the sea where the Beijing-bound MH370 flight from Kuala Lumpur might have lost contact, he said.
He said that three more patrol and rescue vessels under the command of the transport ministry are expected to arrive in the area on Monday and Tuesday.
Rescue ship 115 is expected to arrive at around 4pm on Monday. The naval warship Jinggangshan and two other patrol and rescue vessels are expected to arrive on Tuesday, he said.
He said that China's maritime search and rescue forces will keep in close contact and cooperate with Malaysian and Vietnamese search forces. China will also mobilize merchant ships to assist with the search. – SAnews.gov.za-Xinhua
