{"id":5228,"date":"2014-03-11T05:55:29","date_gmt":"2014-03-11T05:55:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=5228"},"modified":"2014-03-11T05:55:29","modified_gmt":"2014-03-11T05:55:29","slug":"missing-plane-search-widens-to-malaysia-west-coast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=5228","title":{"rendered":"Missing plane: Search widens to Malaysia west coast"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"malaysia<\/a>Authorities searching for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane have widened their search, with the west coast of Malaysia now “the focus” of the hunt.<\/p>\n

The airline said in a statement it was looking at the possibility that the plane tried to return to an airport at Subang, near the capital, Kuala Lumpur.<\/p>\n

But the statement stressed officials were looking at all possibilities.<\/p>\n

Beijing-bound flight MH370 vanished on Saturday shortly after it left Kuala Lumpur. There were 239 people on board.<\/p>\n

In a statement<\/a>, Malaysia Airlines said: “The search and rescue teams have expanded the scope beyond the flight path. The focus now is on the West Peninsular of Malaysia at the Straits of Malacca.<\/p>\n

“The authorities are looking at a possibility of an attempt made by MH370 to turn back to Subang… Apart from the search in the sea, search on land in between these areas is also conducted.”<\/p>\n

Rescue teams from several countries are scouring the seas for signs of the plane.<\/p>\n

Malaysian authorities said on Monday they were expanding the search area from 50 nautical miles from where the plane had disappeared – over waters between Malaysia and Vietnam – to 100 nautical miles (115 miles; 185km).<\/p>\n

Relatives of the missing passengers – most of whom were Chinese – have been told to prepare for the worst.<\/p>\n

China’s Xi’an Satellite Control Centre launched an emergency response and adjusted the operations of up to 10 orbiting satellites to help in the search, a website run by the People’s Liberation Army<\/a> said late on Monday.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Boeing said that it had joined the US National Transportation Safety Board team as a technical advisor. The team has positioned a group of investigators and technical advisers in Asia to offer assistance.<\/p>\n

Candlelight vigil<\/strong><\/p>\n

At least 40 ships and 34 aircraft are taking part in the search in the seas off Vietnam and Malaysia.<\/p>\n

Search and rescue teams from Australia, China, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, Philippines, New Zealand and the United States of America are assisting, Malaysia Airlines said.<\/p>\n

On Monday, people gathered in Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur to hold a candlelight vigil for the missing passengers.<\/p>\n

Families in Beijing and Kuala Lumpur have expressed frustration at the lack of information about the plane’s fate.<\/p>\n

Flight MH370 left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing at 00:41 local time on Saturday (16:41 GMT on Friday). But radio contact was lost at 17:30 GMT, somewhere between Malaysia and Vietnam.<\/p>\n

Officials say they still have no idea what went wrong.<\/p>\n

None of the debris and oil slicks spotted in the water so far have proven to be linked to the disappearance.<\/p>\n

Authorities are also investigating two men who boarded the missing plane on Italian and Austrian passports stolen in Thailand years ago.<\/p>\n

Malaysian police said they had identified one of the men. They did not reveal his identity, but confirmed the man was not Malaysian.<\/p>\n

Experts say the presence of two passengers with stolen passports is a breach of security, but is relatively common in the region and could relate to illegal migration.<\/p>\n

The passengers on the flight were of 14 different nationalities. Two-thirds were from China, while others were from elsewhere in Asia, North America and Europe.<\/p>\n

Malaysia Airlines is the country’s national carrier, flying nearly 37,000 passengers daily to some 80 destinations worldwide.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Authorities searching for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane have widened their search, with the west coast of Malaysia now “the focus” of the hunt. The airline said in a statement it was looking at the possibility that the plane tried to return to an airport at Subang, near the capital, Kuala Lumpur. But the statement […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":5231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-5228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}