Missing Malaysia Airlines flight: Six things we learned about the missing MH370 plane today

Search and rescue teams are continuing to scour the sea for a sign of the missing Boeing 777 jetliner and the 239 people onboard

It is the fourth day of the desperate search to find the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 after it vanished without a trace.

And as passengers begin to be identified, and families cling on to hope their loved ones are alive, there continues to be developments in the search.

The Boeing 777 jetliner, with 227 passengers and 12 crew on board, disappeared early Saturday morning while en route from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing, China.

It has not been seen since.

Two of the passengers were travelling on stolen passports and have since been identified.

A 100-nautical mile radius of the South China Sea is being searched for any trace of the plane.

At least 10 countries are taking part in the search, which involves 40 ships and 34 aircraft.


Here is what we have learned so far today:

1. Passengers with stolen passports identified

A passenger on the missing Malaysia Airlines flight who was travelling on a stolen passport was a teenage Iranian with no terror links, it was revealed on Tuesday.

The 19-year-old - named as Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehrdad - was understood to have been on his way to Germany where he was hoping to seek asylum.

Malaysian police held a press conference this morning four days after the jet seemingly disappeared into thin air.

The Iranian was one of two passengers travelling on stolen passports, Malaysia's police chief Inspector General Khalid Abu Bakar said.

Passengers: These are the two men suspected of boarding with stolen passports

He said the young man - who was travelling to Frankfurt - was "not likely to be a member of a terrorist group".

Mr Bakar said the Malaysian authorities were in contact with his mother in Germany.

The second man travelling on a stolen passport was identified as 29-year-old Delavar Seyedmohammaderza.

An image showed the two Iranian men boarding a plane at the same time.



2. Plane 'tracked to the Strait of Malacca'

Malaysia's military believes it tracked the missing plane on radar over the Strait of Malacca, some distance away from where it last made contact with air traffic control.


The Strait of Malacca runs along the west coast of Malaysia and is one of the world's busiest shipping channels.

The airline said on Saturday that all contact was lost off the eastern coast town of Kota Bharu.

3. China deployed 10 satellites to help search for MH370

China has deployed 10 satellites to help in the massive air and sea search for missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370.

Details emerged today in a report in the People’s Liberation Army Daily, a Chinese newspaper.


The information was also published on the website of China's defence ministry.



Desperate: Families still cling to hope

4. Officials cancelled a press conference:

Officials in Malaysia cancelled a press conference to update the world's media on the hunt for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.

The briefing had been due to take place in Sepang, Malaysia, at 1.55am GMT on Tuesday but was shelved with no reason given.

5. Passenger left his wedding ring with wife:

A husband on board the missing flight left his wedding ring and watch with his wife and children as keepsakes in case something happened to him.

Mechanical engineer Paul Weeks, 39, was on his way to start a new job in Mongolia when the plane disappeared.

Originally from New Zealand, Mr Weeks moved his young family to Perth, Australia, in 2011 to make a new start after their home in Christchurch was devastated by a series of earthquakes.

According to The Times, the ex-soldier had been offered a lucrative engineering position with a mining company in Mongolia and he was en route there via Kuala Lumpur and Beijing when Flight MH370 vanished.

His wife Danica told the newspaper he had left his wedding ring and watch with her to give to their sons Lincoln, three, and Jack, one, when they married.

She said: "Paul said 'If something should happen to me, then the wedding ring should go to the first son that gets married and the watch to the second'."

Getty Relatives comforts Erlina Panjaitan and Risman Siregar, parents of Firman Chandra Siregar, a 24 year-old passenger of Malaysia Airlines flight 370 that went missing on March 8, are comforted by friends in Medan
Worries mount: Relatives comfort Erlina Panjaitan and Risman Siregar, parents of passenger Firman Chandra Siregar

6. Passengers phones still ringing four days later

It has emerged that phones taken on board flight MH370 are still ringing FOUR DAYS after the plane's disappearance.

Reports suggest as many as 19 families have managed to call phones of their missing loved ones, while the airline itself has got through to some of the missing crew's handsets.

According to Chinese media, the 19 families have signed a joint statement confirming they made calls which connected to the missing passengers but without an answer.

In addition  a Malaysia Airlines official  confirmed that they too had tried to get in touch with cellphones of missing crew members, but again without a response.

But frustratingly for all the heartbroken families all messages or calls are yet to be reciprocated.

This isn't the first time that the phones of those people missing were able to be 'reached'.

On Sunday, a family of a passenger successfully rang his phone live on television, but received no answer.




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