News: 26 countries including the UAE search for missing Malaysian plane

UAE's Armed Forces have joined the search for the Malaysia Airlines jetliner that went missing on March 8.
A source told state news agency WAM, the UAE has sent two search and rescue aircaft to join the extensive search effort, stretching from the Indian ocean to Australia as well as south and central Asia. No other details were given.
The UAE is among 26 countries who are participating in the search operation.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 carrying 239 people aboard disappeared without a trace on March 8.
Australia's maritime safety agency said on Tuesday it had sharply reduced its search for the missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner to a 600,000 sq km (230,000 sq mile) corridor in the southern Indian Ocean, but that is still roughly the size of Spain and Portugal combined.Strong currents and high seas are making the task more daunting, it said.In the northern hemisphere, a separate search area is along an arc stretching from Malaysia through northern Thailand, Myanmar and China to Kazakhstan.

WHO ELSE IS INVOLVED


Twenty-six countries are involved in the massive international search for the Malaysia Airlines jetliner that disappeared on March 8 with 239 people aboard. They include not just military assets on land, at sea and in the air, but also investigators and the specific support and assistance requested by Malaysia, such as radar and satellite information.

Here's a look at major countries and their response:

MALAYSIA

Malaysia, which is coordinating the search, has deployed about 18 aircraft and 27 ships, including the submarine support vessel MV Mega Bakti, which can detect objects at a depth of up to 1,000 meters (3,280 feet).

AUSTRALIA

Australia has sent two AP-3C Orion aircraft, one of which is searching north and west of the Cocos Islands in the southern Indian Ocean, and plans to deploy two more by midday Tuesday. Australia's defense department is refusing to say whether Malaysia has asked Australia to divulge any radar information, but Prime Minister Tony Abbott said all Australian agencies are "are scouring their data to see if there's anything they can add to the understanding of this mystery."

CHINA

The Chinese Civil Aviation Authority says the plane did not enter Chinese airspace. China has deployed nine navy ships and civilian patrol vessels and a variety of fixed-wing and rotary aircraft, along with a team of experts dispatched to Malaysia.

UNITED STATES

A P-8A Poseidon, the most advanced long-range anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare aircraft in the world, has been searching in the Indian Ocean. The U.S. Navy also has deployed the destroyer USS Kidd with two MH-60R helicopters.

KAZAKHSTAN

The Transportation Ministry said no unauthorized flights have been detected. The Central Asian nation is the farthest northwest the plane could have flown, given satellite data on its past locations and its fuel limits.

INDONESIA

Indonesian air force spokesman Hadi Tjahjanto says military radars on Sumatra island found no trace of the jetliner and that data requested by the Malaysian government had been handed over. He says that search efforts have shifted from the Malacca Strait to the corridor stretching from northern Sumatra to the Indian Ocean.

PAKISTAN

The director general of the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority, Muhammed Yousaf, says radar recordings shared with Malaysia found no sign of the jetliner.

INDIA

India halted its search operations in the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal and continues to coordinate with Malaysia about possible new search areas.

THAILAND

Royal Thai Air Force spokesman Montol Suchookorn says the Thai military gave its radar data to Malaysia on March 10 and has not received any additional requests. The Royal Thai Navy suspended its search mission in the Gulf of Thailand and South China Sea on Saturday.

OTHERS

Other nations involved are Bangladesh, Brunei, France, Japan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Myanmar, New Zealand, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, U.K., Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.

More updates on the missing MH370 plane to come.
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UPDATES

Australia says suspected debris may have sunk, no sighting in search for jet.

The international team hunting for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean has not turned up anything so far, and Australia's deputy prime minister said the suspected debris may have sunk.
Aircraft and ships have renewed a search in the Andaman Sea between India and Thailand, going over areas that have already been exhaustively swept to find some clue to unlock one of the most inexplicable mysteries in modern aviation.
The Boeing 777 went missing almost two weeks ago off the Malaysian coast with 239 people aboard. There has been no confirmed sign of wreckage but two objects seen floating deep south in the Indian Ocean were considered a credibe lead and set off a huge hunt on Thursday.
Australian authorities said the first aircraft to sweep treacherous seas on Friday in an area about 2,500 km (1,500 miles) southwest of Perth was on its way back to base without spotting the objects picked out by satellite images five days ago.
"Something that was floating on the sea that long ago may no longer be floating," Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss told reporters in Perth. "It may have slipped to the bottom."

But the search is continuing and and Australian, New Zealand and U.S. aircraft would be joined by Chinese and Japanese planes over the weekend.
"It's about the most inaccessible spot that you can imagine on the face of the Earth, but if there is anything down there, we will find it," Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott told reporters in Papua New Guineau, where he is on a visit.
"Now it could just be a container that's fallen off a ship. We just don't know, but we owe it to the families, and the friends and the loved ones to do everything we can to try to resolve what is as yet an extraordinary riddle."

India said it was sending two aircraft, a Poseidon P-8I maritime surveillance aircraft and a C-130 Hercules transporter, to join the hunt in the southern Indian Ocean. It is also sending another P-8I and four warships to search in the Andaman Sea, where the plane was last seen on military radar on March 8.
In New Delhi, officials said the search in areas around the Andaman island chain was not at the request of Malaysian authorities coordinating the global search for the airliner.
"All the navies of the world have SAR regions," said Capt. D.K. Sharma, an Indian navy spokesman, referring to search and rescue regions. "So we're doing it at our own behest.
"We're doing it on our own because the Malaysian plane is still missing."

Investigators suspect Flight MH370, which took off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing shortly after midnight on March 8, was deliberately diverted thousands of miles from its scheduled path. They say they are focusing on hijacking or sabotage but have not ruled out technical problems.
The search for the plane also continues in other regions, including a wide arc sweeping northward from Laos to Kazakhstan.
In the Indian Ocean, three Australian P-3 Orions joined a high-tech U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon and a civilian Bombardier Global Express jet to search the 23,000 square km (8,900 sq mile) zone, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said.
A Norwegian merchant ship, the Hoegh St. Petersburg, was diverted to the area on Thursday and was still searching there and another vessel would arrive later on Friday.
China's icebreaker for Antarctic research, Xuelong, or Snow Dragon, will set off from Perth to search the area, Chinese state news agency Xinhua cited maritime authorities as saying. Up to five more Chinese ships were steaming towards the search zone from across the Indian Ocean, Xinhua reported.
Australian authorities said they had not asked for the ships to search the area. About two-thirds of the missing plane's passengers were Chinese nationals.

There have been many false leads and no confirmed wreckage found from Flight MH370 since it vanished off Malaysia's east coast less than an hour after taking off.
There has also been criticism of the search operation and investigation, as more than two dozen countries scramble to overcome logistical and diplomatic hurdles.
Investigators piecing together patchy data from military radar and satellites believe that, minutes after its identifying transponder was switched off as it crossed the Gulf of Thailand, the plane turned sharply west, re-crossing the Malay Peninsula and following an established route towards India.

What happened next is unclear, but faint electronic "pings" picked up by one commercial satellite suggest the aircraft flew on for at least six hours.
A source with direct knowledge of the situation said that information gleaned from the pings had been passed to investigators within a few days, but it took Malaysia more than a week to narrow the search area to two large arcs - one reaching south to near where the potential debris was spotted, and a second crossing to the north into China and central Asia.