Indian air force looks for missing jet in Myanmar territory

 

The Myanmar government allowed searches for the missing jet in Myanmar territory for one week starting March 11. Nothing was found when the search period ended on March 18.

Malaysia Airlines’ Flight MH370, leaving Kuala Lumpur and bound for Beijing, vanished on March 8 with 239 people on board.

Director General Tin Naing Tun from Myanmar’s Civil Aviation (DCA) said that the Indian air force’s search was fruitless. 

The Indian air force searched for the missing jet in the Bay of Bengal from approximately 9am to 4pm on Saturday.

“They informed us at 6am that they would search for the missing plane. They didn’t find any part of anything related to the aircraft,” Director General Tin Naing Tun from the DCA said.

The regional control centre sought permission from the government to allow the search for the missing plane, which disappeared from the radar while flying over the South China Sea en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The National Disasters Preparedness Central Committee approved the search.

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak on Saturday told the world the deliberate change of direction and altitude of the flight. Two search corridors were outlined, from the north of Thailand to Kazakhstan, and another from Indonesia to the Indian Ocean. Located next to Thailand, Myanmar is in the northern search corridor. 

Twenty-six countries are now involved in searching for the jet in a northern corridor over south and central Asia, and a southern corridor stretching deep into the southern Indian Ocean towards Australia.

Malaysia has deployed its navy and air force to the southern corridor, where Australia is taking the lead in scouring a huge section of ocean off its west coast.

"It will take at least a few weeks to search the area thoroughly," John Young of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority told AFP.

The news agency also reported that the US Pacific Fleet said it was withdrawing a guided missile destroyer because the area was simply too big for such a vessel to make an effective contribution, and that two long-range patrol aircraft would now take the lead.

According to the Star, every possible motive is being looked at including terrorism, hijack and suicide. Both Malaysia and China are looking into the terror angle with MAS CEO Ahmad Jauhari saying that the passenger manifest had been passed to the police to check the background of each passenger.

“We know the background of the crew and now the police are doing background checks on the passengers,” he said.

Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein also said Beijing had been asked to look again at the passenger manifest although all of them had earlier been cleared by the Chinese.

A Philippine intelligence agency has cleared Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, of having any link to terrorist groups. However, the agency is still corroborating information with other intelligence agencies involved in the investigations of the pilot of the missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) jet.