KUALA LUMPUR, March 20 – Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak on Thursday held a meeting with Chief of Defence Forces Tan Sri Mohd Zulkifeli Mohd Zin over the reported sighting of objects in the southern Indian Ocean related to the search for a missing Malaysian airliner.
Najib said in his latest post on Twitter that he held the meeting after Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott had telephoned him to convey the news of the sighting of the objects on satellite imagery.
“Meeting my Chief of Defence Forces. After call from @TonyAbbottMHR, awaiting confirmation from Australia on the objects found,” he said in his tweet at @NajibRazak.
Abbott telephoned Najib at 10 am today, informing that possible objects related to the missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH370 may have been found in the southern Indian Ocean.
The Australian prime minister had told Parliament in Canberra earlier today that satellite imagery had shown two objects that could be related to the MAS Boeing 777-200ER aircraft that disappeared on March 8.
Reuters news agency had quoted Abbot as saying “the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) has received information based on satellite imagery of objects possibly related to the search.”
MAS Flight MH370, with 227 passengers and 12 crew on board, disappeared about an hour after leaving the KL International Airport at 12.41 am on March 8. It was scheduled to arrive in Beijing at 6.30 am on the same day.
A search was mounted for the aircraft in the South China Sea but the area of the search was extended to cover a large tract west of Malaysia, including the Indian Ocean, when it was learned that the plane had veered off course after someone deliberately switched off the communication system on board and the plane had flown for seven hours after that.
The search then focused on two corridors, namely the northern corridor which stretches from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to northern Thailand, and the southern corridor which stretches from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.
– BERNAMA
