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General Rodzali Daud

BEIJING/PARIS. – China has requested Malaysia to verify rumours that the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 may have turned back from its scheduled course before vanishing. “We have sent requests to the Malaysian side through diplomatic channels, asking them to check up on rumours right away and inform China of all information available,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang in a written statement.

A Malaysian military official told a Press conference on Sunday the missing flight may have changed route and turned back from its scheduled course before disappearing on Saturday.

However, earlier yesterday, Malaysia’s Air Force Chief General Rodzali Daud denied a report that military radar had tracked MH370 flying over the Strait of Malacca, although he did not rule out the possibility that the aircraft turned back before it vanished from radar screens.

Based on this possibility, a multinational search operation to locate the missing flight has been expanded to the Strait of Malacca and South China Sea with more countries joining in the mission.

Forty-two ships and 39 aircraft have been deployed so far in the hunt for the Boeing 777-200 plane carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew. It vanished early on Saturday on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing after losing contact with air traffic control in waters between Malaysia and Vietnam.

No trace of the plane has been found.
Meanwhile, a fleet of earth-monitoring satellites has joined the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, the organisers of the satellite pool said yesterday.

China on Tuesday requested activation of the so-called International Charter on Space and Major Disasters, the organisation said on its website.

Under the agreement, 15 space agencies or national space institutes help emergency or relief efforts by passing on images from satellites flying over the location.

“Satellite imagery is now being employed to search for any evidence of the plane, both before and after it disappeared,” the website said.
“As of 12 March 2014 (yesterday), the search remains ongoing.”

The activation request came from the China Meteorological Administration, it said.
“They are providing high-resolution data,” a European Space Agency (ESA) official, whose organisation is a charter member, told AFP.
He was unable to say which geographical areas were being covered.

The Charter, which took effect in 2000, has been activated more than 400 times, but this is the first time it has been called in to help the search for a missing aircraft, according to records of its operations.

It has been mostly used in the aftermath of earthquakes and floods when rescue teams needed to identify badly damaged zones or roads, railways and bridges that are still passable.

It was invoked last November to aid swathes of the Philippines ravaged by Typhoon Haiyan. – Xinhua/AFP.