Explosion nearly Ruled Out On Missing Flight MH370

He said the search covers a 120 by 40 kilometre area over the south-eastern Indian Ocean.

Shareef said the Maldives had shared defence radar and surveillance data with Malaysia following reports last year that an unidentified airliner had been seen flying low over some of the islets shortly after the MH370 went missing.

“We believe it is important for worldwide civil aviation, generally, for us to determine what happened for this flight, as well as provide the opportunity for families of those onboard to have some closure”, she said.

In an interview with the broadcaster, Sara, whose brother Paul was on the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing that went missing on March 8 last year, said that she wished that all parties had waited until they were all on the same page before making the announcement. Experts who examined the debris in France “conclusively confirmed” that it belonged to the doomed flight MH370, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said last week.

U.S. and French officials involved in the investigation were more cautious, stopping short of full confirmation but saying it made sense that the metal piece of the wing, known as the flaperon, came from Flight 370.

On Sunday, Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said they were seeking help from countries near Reunion Island in the search.

Meanwhile, MCA deputy national organizing secretary Datuk Chai Kim Sen lashed out at the French weekly Charlie Hebdo for mocking Malaysia Airlines pilots and its cabin crew.

A spokesperson for the FAZSOI, the military forces operating the search plane said the CASA was grounded Saturday because there had been no order to fly from the Island’s Prefect.

New potential debris has been reported nearly daily as local residents take to the beaches, hoping to uncover the next piece of the as-yet unsolved aviation puzzle.

Shortly after MH370 disappeared, Maldives islanders said they witnessed a low-flying jumbo jet going over their island on the day it vanished. Investigators believe that someone may have deliberately switched off the aircraft’s transponder, diverted it thousands of miles off course, and deliberately crashed into the ocean off Australia.

An initial search of a 60,000-square-kilometer patch of sea floor has been extended to another 60,000 square kilometers but Australia has not been asked to extend its search area, Truss’ spokesman said.