Malaysia will issue report on missing jet

Malaysia will release a preliminary report on Thursday on the disappearance of flight MH370 nearly two months after it went missing, according to a Transport Ministry official.  [Special coverage]

Malaysian media reported interim transport and defense minister Hishammuddin Hussein as saying on Wednesday that the report would be made public.

According to state news agency Bernama, Hishammuddin said the report would be similar to the one forwarded to the International Civil Aviation Organization. The ICAO requires countries to submit a factual run-down of what is known so far in any air crash within 30 days.

"I don't think there's going to be any problem to issue it. But we have decided it as a team, that it's going to be issued tomorrow," he said.

As the hunt for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 begins to move into a new phase of intensified undersea search, some nations have begun withdrawing aircraft that were trying to spot debris on the surface of the south Indian Ocean.

On Monday, Australia's Air Chief Marshal Angus Wilson announced that the undersea search would become the focal point, and Prime Minister Tony Abbott said it was extremely unlikely debris from the aircraft could still be found on the ocean's surface.

The United States, Japan, New Zealand and Malaysia have all confirmed that their aircraft involved in the search were returning to base.

Eight nations have been involved in the unprecedented Indian Ocean search by air - including China, Australia, South Korea and Britain - making more than 300 sorties across a vast expanse of water.

The joint air and sea search for flight MH370 - which vanished with 239 people on board on March 8 while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing - has not found any wreckage.

The US navy unmanned submersible Bluefin-21 completed 16 search missions in the area where one of the MH370's black boxes may have been heard. It will continue diving in adjacent areas, the Joint Agency Coordination Center said in the statement.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott estimated on Monday it would take six to eight months for the submarine drone and other technology, possibly specialized side-scan sonar, to scour an area of about 56,000 sq km of seabed.