Kuala Lumpur: Eyewitnesses in the Maldives claim to have seen a low-flying jumbo jet “with red stripes†similar to that of a missing Malaysia Airliner MH37O flying over their houses.
The hunt for the missing passenger jet now focuses on two vast search areas – a northern one spanning south and central Asia, and a southern corridor stretching deep into the southern Indian Ocean towards Australia.
The global search for the missing airliner now covers an area the size of Australia at 2.24 square nautical miles.
As the search for MH370 enters a new phase, it brings new diplomatic, technical and logistical challenges. According to the BBC, Indonesia is refusing to let search planes overfly its territory. Two Japanese P-3 Orion search aircraft, two Japanese C-130 Hercules craft, a P-3 Orion from South Korea and one from the US all grounded due to Indonesia’s refusal.
(With AFP inputs)