Malaysia’s acting transport minister says a range of the nation's search and rescue assets have been deployed off the east coast of peninsular Malaysia to search for a missing Malaysia Airlines 777-200.

Hishammuddin Hussein, who is also Malaysia's defence minister, denied reports that wreckage has been found. He said, however, that the Malaysian government is following up on reports from Vietnam saying that the aircraft, bearing registration 9M-MRO, crashed in the South China Sea to the south of Vietnam.

He was speaking to a press briefing in Kuala Lumpur.

Meanwhile, a range of Malaysian air force aircraft are converging around the coordinates of the aircraft’s last known radar contact. These include Lockheed Martin C-130 aircraft and Airbus Helicopters EC725s – the latter of which is equipped for combat search and rescue, including electro optical/infrared sensors.

In addition to these assets, aircraft and ships from other branches of the Malaysian armed forces as well as other countries are engaged in the search.

Flight 370 lost contact with Subang Air Traffic Control in Malaysia around 02:40 on 8 March, the airline says.

It departed with 227 passengers and 12 crew members at 12:41am, with a scheduled arrival in Beijing at 06:30. Malaysia Airlines announced the aircraft was missing at 07:24.

Source: Cirium Dashboard

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