Vietnamese air force planes find oil slicks as search for missing jet continues
AP Photo/Lai Seng Sin


The search continues for a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 that disappeared off radar screens less than an hour after it took off from Kuala Lumpur on Saturday morning.
Bound for Beijing, the plane has 227 passengers and 12 crew members aboard. Malaysia Airlines said the pilot, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, has flown more than 18,000 hours for the airline since 1981. Neither he nor the first officer sent a distress signal, suggesting any problems occurred very quickly and perhaps did not leave time to make such a call.
Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam are coordinating on the search for the missing jet. Vietnamese air force planes discovered oil slicks that could be from a crashed jetliner's fuel tanks, but there is no confirmation they're the product of the missing plane.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
In Kuala Lumpur and Beijing, families of the plane’s passengers await news, pictured below. --Sarah Eberspacher

Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.