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Vast waters hide clues in hunt for missing Malaysia Airlines flight
Where is Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370? |
The mysteries surrounding the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines
Flight 370, and the true identities of some of its passengers, are as
deep as the southeast Asian waters where multinational search teams are searching for the jet.
Navies from two of Malaysia's neighbors were pursuing new leads as Sunday turned into Monday in the region.
Vietnam's navy has
spotted a floating object about 80 kilometers (50 miles) southwest of
Vietnam's Tho Chu Island, which is off the country's southwest coast in
the Gulf of Thailand, Vietnam National Search and Rescue Committee
spokesman Hung Nguyen told CNN. The object was spotted by a Vietnamese
navy rescue aircraft at about 7:30 a.m. ET Sunday (6:30 p.m. local
time). Because of the dark, the navy aircraft could not get close enough
to identify the floating object and was recalled to base. Three search
and rescue boats have since been deployed to that location.
Meanwhile, Thailand's
navy is shifting its focus in the search away from the Gulf of Thailand
and the South China Sea, Thai Navy Rear Adm. Karn Dee-ubon told CNN on
Sunday. The shift came at the request of the Malaysians, who are looking
into possibilities the plane turned around and could have gone down in
the Andaman Sea, near Thailand's border, Karn said.
The Andaman Sea lies to
the west of a narrow strip of Thailand that ends in the Malaysian
Peninsula, while the Gulf of Thailand lies to the east of that Thai
isthmus.
One promising lead has
turned out to be a dead end. A "strange object" spotted by a Singaporean
search plane late Sunday afternoon is not debris from the missing
jetliner, a U.S. official familiar with the issue told CNN on Sunday.
A U.S. reconnaissance
plane "thought it saw something like debris, but it was a false alarm,"
said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
By the end of the day
Sunday, more than 40 planes and more than two dozen ships from several
countries were involved in the search. Two reconnaissance aircraft from
Australia and one plane and five sea vessels from Indonesia were the
latest additions, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, the director general of civil
aviation in Malaysia, told reporters Sunday. In addition, the Chinese
navy dispatched a frigate and an amphibious landing ship, according to
an online post by China's navy.
Those reinforcements join
the rescue teams already scouring the South China Sea, near the Gulf of
Thailand, for any sign of where the flight, operated by Malaysia's
flagship airline, might have gone down, Malaysian authorities said.
The area in focus for
most of the search, about 90 miles south of Tho Chu Island, is where a
Vietnamese plane reportedly spotted oil slicks that stretched between 6
and 9 miles.
"I can confirm that
there was an oil slick, no debris. But what we are doing now, I was told
that the Vietnamese aircrafts are on the site right now to verify what
actually is it on the surface of those waters," said acting Malaysian
Transportation Minister Hishammuddin bin Tun Hussein.
Big questions far outweigh the few fragments of information that have emerged about the plane's disappearance:
What happened to the plane? Why was no distress signal issued? Who exactly was aboard?
The flight may have
changed course and turned back toward Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian military
officials said at a news conference Sunday.
But the pilot appears to
have given no signal to authorities that he was turning around, the
officials said, attributing the change of course to indications from
radar data.
As the search continues, the agonizing wait goes on for relatives of the 227 passengers
and 12 crew members on board the plane. Video from Reuters showed
Malaysia Airlines personnel in Beijing, where Flight 370 was headed,
helping family members apply for expedited passports so they could fly
to Kuala Lumpur early this week.
Among the passengers, 154 people were from China or Taiwan; 38 Malaysians, five Indian nationals and three U.S. citizens. Five of the passengers were younger than 5 years old.
Malaysia Airlines said
Monday that initial financial assistance has been given out to all
passengers' families "over and above their basic needs." Each family has
also been assigned at least one caregiver.
"Malaysia Airlines'
primary focus at this point in time is to care for the families. This
means providing them with timely information, travel facilities,
accommodation, meals, medical and emotional support," the airline said
in a statement.
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