Oil slicks found off Vietnamese coast in possible connection with missing Malaysian plane

Vietnamese search and rescue helicopters on Sunday morning found oil slicks stretching 80 meters in waters 150 km off the coast of Vietnam's southernmost Ca Mau province.

The strip of oil slicks has a possible link with the missing Malaysian jetliner with 239 people on board, experts from Vietnamese rescue agencies said after examining video footage.

There was still no confirmed sighting of wreckage from the Boeing 777-200 in the sea between Malaysia and Vietnam where it vanished from radar screen early Saturday morning en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur.

But the video information led the experts to believe that the missing Malaysia Airlines plane could have crashed into seabed just around 50 meters under the surface, so that search and rescue work will not be too hard to do in the worst case.

According to the Vietnam National Rescue and Search Committee, as of 7 a.m, local time (0100 GMT) Sunday, 13 planes and 29 vessels from different countries are making joint search and rescue efforts, including Malaysia, China, the Philippines, Singapore, and Vietnam, around the last known position of flight MH370 before it disappeared off the radar.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, a Boeing 777-200 with 227 passengers and 12 crew members aboard, took off from Kuala Lumpur at 00:41 a.m. local time Saturday, and was due to arrive in Beijing at 6:30 a.m. the same day.

Malaysia's Department of Civil Aviation Director General Azharuddin Abdul Rahman told at a press conference early Sunday in Kuala Lumpur that the air traffic control lost contact with the plane at 1:30 a.m. local time on Saturday, instead of 2:40 a.m. as reported previously.