Hisham: No confirmation of alleged Boeing 777 - MH370 crash in Vietnam waters

Malaysian authorities said there is yet to be an official confirmation on the veracity of reports that the KL-Beijing flight MH370 flight have crashed into the sea 246 kilometres off Tho Chu Island in Vietnam.

Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein today said that the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) and the Foreign Minister have confirmed the reports to be, so far untrue.

“That’s enough. We are awaiting a confirmation from our military and we are contacting the navy in Vietnam to get a confirmation, we expect that in a few hours,” Hishammuddin told a press conference.

Hishammuddin said that there is no information yet on the Boeing 777-200 plane or any wreckage found at sea.

“At this point, we have not received any information of any wreckage at sea or any information that this is related to a terrorist act,” he said. “In any case, we are not ruling out any possibilities," he added.

The DCA is expected to give two-hour updates via press conferences at the KLIA airport.

MAS has contacted 80 percent of the passengers' family members and Hishammuddin also urged the public to stop spreading rumours regarding the missing aircraft.

It has been more than 9 hours since the plane lost contact with air traffic control. Vietnam and China are also helping in the search efforts.

Earlier, there were rumours saying that authorities had detected the signal of the missing plane and that it had crashed into the ocean.

The plane lost contact with Subang Air Traffic Control, between 1-2 hours after takeoff at 2.40am earlier today.

The flight was carrying a total number of 239 passengers (including 2 infants) from 14 different nations and 12 crew members.