Malaysian Min thanks countries for effort to trace missing jet

Rameswaram (TN) Mar 14: Malaysian Minister Subramanian Sathasivam today thanked various countries, including India, for their assistance in tracing Beijing-bound Malaysian jetliner, which mysteriously disappeared last Friday.

He said it remains a mystery whether the jetliner crashed into the sea or had been hijacked. "If the plane had crashed, the debris should have been traced. It is a mystery whether the plane crashed into the sea or was hijacked," he told reporters here.

Sathasivam thanked various countries, including India, China and USA, for their efforts to trace the plane and said the only known thing was that two Iranians were in the plane. He was speaking after visiting the Ramanathaswamy temple here tonight and offering worship to the presiding deity.

The missing jetliner carrying 227 passengers, including five Indians and one Indian-origin Canadian, and 12 crew members mysteriously vanished from radar screens an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur last week.

There has been no trace of the plane nor any sign of wreckage, despite a search by the navies and military aircraft of more than a dozen countries across Southeast Asia. India yesterday deployed four warships to locate the jetliner.

PTI