Kuala Lumpur: Two Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft of the Chinese air force left Malaysia Saturday for Australia to join the search for the missing Malaysian airliner in the southern Indian Ocean.
The two aircraft took off at around 7 a.m. from the Royal Malaysian Air Force base in Subang, about 30 km west of Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur, Xinhua reported.
Three aircraft from the Chinese air force — two Il-76s and one Y-8 — arrived at the base Friday. The Malaysian side said they would give full support to the Chinese air force in its search mission.
Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 vanished mysteriously about an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur March 8.
The Boeing 777-200ER was initially presumed to have crashed off the Vietnamese coast in the South China Sea. The plane was scheduled to land in Beijing at 6.30 a.m. the same day. The 227 passengers on board included five Indians, 154 Chinese and 38 Malaysians.
Contact with the plane was lost along with its radar signal at 1.40 a.m. when it was flying over the air traffic control area of Ho Chi Minh City.
Malaysian military officials said Friday the arrival of the Chinese aircraft beefed up the assets deployed for the search and rescue operation and boosted confidence of all the people from different countries involved in the operation.
Xiao Guanghui, senior colonel of the Chinese Air Force, told Xinhua that three aircraft with 53 crew members were deployed, of which two aircraft with 39 crew would fly to Australia.
“When we arrive in Australia, we will carry out the search and rescue operation according to the arrangement of Australia,” he said.
“As there are seven regions in total, we will go to the most possible and suspicious place linked to the missing plane,” he said.
Chen Wei, military attache at the Chinese embassy in Malaysia, said the Y-8 would fly from Malaysia to the Andaman Sea for search and rescue operation Saturday afternoon.