MH370 Malaysia plane: Search enters third week

International search teams moved their focus to the southern Indian Ocean three days ago after apparent sightings of debris, but nothing has been found, BBC News reports. Flight MH370 dropped out of contact an hour after leaving Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing, at 00:41 Saturday, 8 March (16:41 GMT, 7 March). Malaysian officials suspect the plane was deliberately taken off course. Five aircraft have been scouring a 23,000 sq km area of rough seas some 2,500 km (1,550 miles) south-west of the Australian city of Perth. Additional vessels supplied by China, Japan and the United Kingdom are due to join them in the search. "It's about the most inaccessible spot that you can imagine on the face of the Earth, but if there is anything down there, we will find it," said Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott. "We owe it to the families and the friends and the loved ones of [those on board] to do everything we can to try to resolve what is as yet an extraordinary riddle." 'Visual search' Three Australian air force P-3 Orion planes, a US Navy P-8 Poseidon and a civil Bombardier Global Express jet have been taking part in the last two days of searching. Each aircraft is able to search for no more than two hours due to the distance from land. Bad weather on Thursday hampered the search using radar so on Friday the planes flew below cloud cover for a "visual search". John Young of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (Amsa) said they were "flying relatively low" with "very highly skilled and trained observers looking out of the aircraft windows... to see objects". But Amsa said Friday's search had concluded "without any sightings". Two merchant ships have joined the search and the Australian navy ship, HMAS Success, is on its way. China - which had 153 of its citizens on board flight MH370 - is sending three navy vessels as well as its icebreaker Xue Long (Snow Dragon). 'Long haul' The search effort in the southern Indian Ocean is only part of a much wider hunt for the plane - reaching as far north as Kazakhstan. Satellite data, picked up some seven hours after the plane lost radio contact, suggests it could have disappeared in two corridors to the north and south of its last known location in the Malacca Straits. Details also at