A satellite image showing objects in a “suspected crash sea area” in the South China Sea on March 9, 2014/AFP
China said late on Wednesday its satellites had detected three large floating objects in a suspected crash site near where the Malaysia Airlines plane, which disappeared Saturday on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board, lost contact.
But Vietnam said on Thursday that two of its planes dispatched to the area had found no trace of the airliner.
Reeling from a storm of criticism about its handling of the crisis, Malaysia also sent an aircraft to investigate the reported sighting in the South China Sea, pledging to pursue all “concrete clues” -but that it had also found nothing as of Thursday afternoon.
“Nil sighting,” the Malaysian air force’s director-general of operations, Affendi Buang, told AFP.
The search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 – which entered a sixth day on Thursday – has been blighted by false alarms, swirling rumours and contradictory statements about its fate. READ: US suspects missing plane flew on for hours: WSJ report.
“Every day it just seems like it’s an eternity,” Danica Weeks, whose husband Paul was on board, told CNN from their home in the Australian city of Perth.
Fighting back tears, she described how Paul had left his wedding ring and watch with her for safekeeping before starting his journey to a mining venture in Mongolia.
“I’m praying that I can give (them) back to him. It’s all I can hold onto. Because there’s no finality to it and we’re not getting any information,” she said.
China’s state science and technology administration said a satellite had captured images of the objects in a suspected crash area on Sunday, and the information was being analysed.
China will keep up the search “as long as there is a glimmer of hope”, Premier Li Keqiang said.
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