Six Indian ships deployed in search for Malaysian jet

India's navy said Friday it has nearly doubled the number of ships and planes deployed to search the Andaman Sea for a missing Malaysian jet which disappeared with 239 people on board.

It said six ships and five aircraft were now scouring for any sign of the vanished plane in the Andaman Sea, which surrounds India's remote Andaman and Nicobar group of islands that lie far to the country's southeast.

"We want to cover the area and it should be strictly done," Indian naval spokesman D.K. Sharma told AFP.

India had earlier deployed three ships and three aircraft in the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 which disappeared a week ago.

The Indian ships and aircraft were looking in an area "designated" by the Malaysian navy in the southern region of the Andaman Sea, Sharma said.

The Malaysia Airlines flight, which lost contact on Saturday en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, had five Indian passengers aboard.

Malaysian authorities said Friday they were dramatically expanding the already vast scope of their so-far fruitless search, heading further west into the Indian Ocean and east across the South China Sea.