updated 2:21 AM EDT, Mon March 10, 2014
(CNN) --
Despite the efforts of 34 planes, 40 ships and search crews from eight countries, officials have not found any sign of a Malaysia Airlines flight that went missing two days ago.
Despite the efforts of 34 planes, 40 ships and search crews from eight countries, officials have not found any sign of a Malaysia Airlines flight that went missing two days ago.
"Unfortunately, ladies
and gentlemen, we have not found anything that appear to be objects from
the aircraft, let alone the aircraft," Azharuddin Abdul Rahman,
director general of the Malaysian civil aviation department, told
reporters Monday.
So, more than 48 hours
later, the mysteries surrounding Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 -- and the
true identifies of some of its passengers -- remain intact.
Rahman discounted media reports that a plane door had been spotted.
"That report was not verified officially by the Vietnamese authorities," he said.
Another report said the plane's tail had been found. That, too, is untrue, he said.
The only lead
investigators have is an oil slick that a Vietnamese plane spotted, 90
miles south of Vietnam's Tho Chu Island in the Gulf of Thailand.
The oil slick stretched between 6 and 9 miles -- and is being lab-tested.
No emergency signal has
been detected by any search vessels or aircraft. And family members of
passengers are being told to prepare for the worst.
"For the aircraft to go missing just like that ... as far as we are concerned, we are equally puzzled as well," Rahman said.
"We have to find the aircraft."
So far, nothing
Malaysia Airlines Flight
370 took off from Kuala Lumpur early Saturday morning. The Boeing
777-200ER, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members, went missing
while flying to Beijing.
Since then, teams of
searchers from Vietnam, China, Singapore, Indonesia, USA, Thailand,
Australia and the Philippines have been working alongside Malaysians to
scour the Gulf of Thailand, part of the South China Sea that lies
between several Southeast Asian countries.
The focus has now
shifted to the Andaman Sea, near Thailand's border after radar data
indicated the plane may have turned around to head back to Kuala Lumpur.
But the pilot appeared to have given no signal to authorities that he was turning around.
From 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., planes flew over the vast waters. Ships searched through the night.
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.
"We need hard evidence. We need concrete evidence," Rahman said. "We are increasing our efforts to do what we have to do."
The stolen passports
It is perplexing enough
that a jetliner seemed to have vanished without a trace. Adding to the
intrigue is the news that at least two people on board were traveling on
passports stolen from an Austrian and an Italian.
Interpol tweeted Sunday it was examining additional "suspect #passports."
The two passengers who used the passports in question appear to have bought their tickets together.
"Whilst it is too soon
to speculate about any connection between these stolen passports and the
missing plane, it is clearly of great concern that any passenger was
able to board an international flight using a stolen passport listed in
INTERPOL's databases," said Interpol Secretary General Ronald K. Noble
in a statement.
Terrorism concern
The passport mystery
raised concerns about the possibility of terrorism, but officials
cautioned that it was still too early to arrive at any conclusions.
One possible explanation for the use of the stolen passports is illegal immigration.
There are previous cases
of illegal immigrants using fake passports to try to enter Western
countries. And Southeast Asia is known to be a booming market for stolen
passports
Five passengers ended up
not boarding the aircraft. Their bags were removed and were not on
board the jet when it disappeared, Rahman said at Monday's briefing.
Could the plane have been hijacked? "We are looking at every angle, every aspect," Rahman said.
"We are looking at every inch of the sea."
Agonizing wait
For the relatives of the 227 passengers and 12 crew members, the wait has been agonizing.
Among the passengers,
154 people were from China or Taiwan. The plane was also carrying 38
Malaysians, five Indians and three Americans citizens. Five of the
passengers were younger than 5 years old.
In Beijing, family members gathered in a conference room at a hotel complex.
More than 100 people
signed a hand-written petition that demanded "truth" from the airline.
They also urged the Chinese government to help them deal with Malaysian
authorities.
Malaysia Airlines, which
was helping family members apply for expedited passports, said it will
fly out five relatives of each passenger to Kuala Lumpur.
A fuller picture of what happened may not become available until searchers find the plane and its flight data recorder.
And so far, that hasn't happened.
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