Missing plane MH370: Malaysia PM Najib Razak in Australia

2 April 2014 

Search planes have been taking off from Perth every day, weather permitting

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has arrived in Perth, Western Australia, where the search for missing flight MH370 is being co-ordinated.

Mr Najib is due to meet PM Tony Abbott and retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, who is overseeing the search.
The Malaysia Airlines plane disappeared on 8 March en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. It was carrying 239 people.
Planes and ships have been scouring the southern Indian Ocean where the jet is believed to have crashed.
The focus of the search is a 221,000 sq km (85,000 sq mile) area 1,500km (932 miles) west of Perth.
But so far not a single piece of debris from the Boeing 777 has been found.
It is understood that Mr Najib will meet search crews at Pearce RAAF base near Perth on Thursday morning, before their planes leave for the search area.
Mr Najib will also visit the Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre (JACC) - from where the search is being led - and will hold talks with Mr Abbott later in the day.

Malaysian PM Najib Razak has come under fire for the handling of the disappearance

Many objects have been pulled from the water, but none of them from the missing plane

Malaysian authorities have come in for heavy criticism over their management of the search - especially from relatives of the plane's 153 Chinese passengers.
On Wednesday, a multinational team of 10 planes and nine ships took part in the search.

Continue reading the main story

MH370 - Facts at a glance

• 8 March: Malaysia Airlines Kuala Lumpur-Beijing flight carrying 239 people disappears
• Plane's transponder, which communicates with ground radar, was switched off as it left Malaysian airspace
• Satellite 'pings' indicate plane was still flying seven hours after satellite contact was lost
• 24 March: Based on new calculations, Malaysian PM says "beyond reasonable doubt" that plane crashed in southern Indian Ocean with no survivors

• What we know
• The search for flight MH370

The British submarine HMS Tireless is also in the southern Indian Ocean and is due to be joined by Royal Navy ship HMS Echo.

The Australian Navy ship Ocean Shield is also on its way to the region and has equipment for detecting the plane's "black-box" flight recorder.
Experts say timing is critical as the flight recorder may only have enough battery power to send out a signal until 7 April.
Earlier, Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said investigators had "cleared" all passengers of possible involvement in hijacking, sabotage or having personal or psychological problems that could have been connected to the disappearance.
But he said that the criminal investigation could "go on and on and on. We have to clear every little thing".
"At the end of the investigations, we may not even know the real cause. We may not even know the reason for this incident," he added.
The police chief said that more than 170 interviews had been conducted with family members of the pilots and crew members, and that even cargo and food served on the plane were being investigated in case of sabotage.

In an interview with Australia's ABC network, Air Chief Marshal Houston said that a lack of reliable flight telemetry and punishing conditions at sea were making the operation even more challenging.

"We don't have a precise aircraft location for six hours before the aircraft went into the water somewhere," he said.
"The reality is it's the most complex and challenging search and rescue operation, or search and recovery operation now, that I've ever seen."
Mr Abbott described it as "one of the great mysteries of our time".
In an interview with Perth radio station Radio 6iX, he said: "We owe it to the world, we owe it to those families, to do whatever we reasonably can do get to the bottom of this."