Malaysian investigation rules out passengers, focuses on pilots and crew

The search for missing Malaysia Airlines jet resumes, as time runs out to locate the black box recorder, without which it may not be possible to explain the plane's disappearance. Sarah Toms reports.

Published

4 months ago

Categories

World

Topics

Asia, World

People

Sarah Toms, Khalid Abu Bakar

Places

Malaysia, Beijing, Indian Ocean, Western Australia, Kuala Lumpur

Companies

Malaysia Airlines

Transcript

Japanese P3 Orion planes again depart this small military airbase in western Australia on Wednesday, resuming the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet. They join a massive search in a remote part of the southern Indian Ocean, where it's believed Flight MH370 went down. Search planes like this one have been scouring the waters for weeks but so far no trace has been found. Ten planes, nine ships and even a British submarine, hunt on Wednesday for the plane, which disappeared as it was travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Malaysia believes someone switched off the jet's communications systems before diverting it thousands of kilometres off course. Police are focussing investigations on the crew and pilots. (SOUNDBITE) (English) INSPECTOR GENERAL OF POLICE, ROYAL MALAYSIAN POLICE FORCE, KHALID ABU BAKAR, SAYING: "As we have said earlier, only the passengers has been cleared. The rest? No." But as these aircraft leave for the search zone some 2,000 km away, it's a race against time to find some evidence of MH370 and the black box recorder for any answers as to why the plane disappeared.