The search continues for a 227-passenger Malaysia Airlines flight that went missing Saturday morning. Reports say the plane is presumed to have crashed, according to Reuters.
The Boeing 777-200 took off from Kuala Lumpur and was to land in Beijing. But the plane "lost contact" with Subang Air Traffic Control about two hours into its flight at 2:40 a.m., according to Fox News.
Several countries, including the Philippines, China and the U.S., deployed planes and ships to search for the plane where it vanished halfway between south Vietnam and Malaysia. A force of 15 airplanes, six navy ships and three coast guard vessels have been sent by Malaysia, Reuters reported.
"The search and rescue operations will continue as long as necessary," Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak told Reuters.
So far the only signs of the plane are two large oil slicks that were spotted by Vietnamese air forces Saturday near where the plane vanished, Fox News reported.
The oil slicks, nearly nine miles long, have not been confirmed as coming from the missing Boeing.
But the types of oil slicks are consistent with what would happen if the two fuel tanks of a jetliner crashed, Fox News reported.
Though no signs of a plane wreckage have been found, a senior naval official told Vietnam's state media that the plane had crashed near Vietnam, according to Reuters.
That claim was later denied by Malaysia's transport minister.
"We are looking for accurate information from the Malaysian military," Transport Minister Hishamuddin Hussein told Reuters. "They are waiting for information from the Vietnamese side."
The missing plane, with a crew of 12, gave no indication it was in distress. The disappearance is hauntingly similar to when an Air France flight went missing in 2009, according to Reuters. It was found crashed two days later in the South Atlantic. A total of 228 people lost their lives.
