Missing Airliner: No Trace But Hope Sustains Search

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.

The western boundary of the multinational current search area is around 2,500 km southwest of Perth.

Four civil ultra-long range jets chartered by AMSA and four military aircraft from Australia and the US were involved in Sunday's search together with the HMAS Success.

Twenty State Emergency Service (SES) volunteers from Western Australia were tasked as air observers Sunday on board the civil aircraft.

"Each civil aircraft had five SES air observers on board, as well as an AeroRescue Aviation Mission Coordinator. Aerorescue is AMSA's contracted provider of dedicated search and rescue services from locations across Australia," the AMSA said in its statement.

"The search will resume tomorrow. Chinese military Ilyushin IL-76 aircraft and Japanese P-3C aircraft will join the search Monday."
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