Malaysia’s agricultural minister has asked the country’s fishermen to help look for a missing airliner, further widening an already gigantic search area for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which disappeared more than two days ago.
Dato Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob told the media during a visit to the Everly Hotel outside the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, where many families of passengers on the missing airline are staying, that 1,733 vessels have been asked to watch for anything unusual during their normal operations.
They will look for “anything other than fish,” he said, adding that he had also spoken to Indonesia about the possibility of widening the search further by including Indonesian fishermen.
Malaysia’s fishing fleet contributes 11.44 billion ringgit ($3.5 billion) to the country’s annual gross domestic product, according to 2012 data from the Department of Fisheries, the latest available on its website. In that year, the country had more than 54,000 licensed fishing vessels.
The fishermen will join a growing international search and rescue operation by looking for debris and other signs of the Boeing 777 aircraft on both the western and eastern side of Peninsular Malaysia.
The operation, which officials said early Monday now included 34 aircraft, 40 ships and hundreds of personnel from several countries, has still not managed to locate the missing airliner, which disappeared early Saturday morning on a routine flight to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur. There were 239 people on board.
Malaysian military radar readings suggest the plane may have reversed course just before disappearing, the country’s air force chief said Sunday, which prompted authorities to widen their search in fear that it could have strayed from its original planned route.
Investigators haven’t recovered any part of the missing aircraft, investigators said Monday, despite reports a day earlier from Vietnam that parts resembling an aircraft door and a tail had been spotted in the ocean 50 miles south-southwest of Tho Chu island.
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