Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (BBN) – The search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane has now entered its third week, with rescue teams scouring remote seas in the Indian Ocean.

Satellites detected debris two days ago 2,500 km (1,550 miles) south-west of Perth in Australia, but planes have so far failed to track down the objects, the BBC reported.

Flight MH370 dropped out of contact an hour after leaving Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing on 8 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 in the southern Indian Ocean.

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.

Malaysia's Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein thanked the 20 or so countries involved in the search and said they were facing a "long haul".
But he acknowledged they are working against the clock, as they now have two weeks left to locate the plane's "black box" voice and data recorder before it no longer transmits an electronic locator signal.

Malaysian officials say they believe the plane was intentionally diverted as it turned back on itself – heading towards the Malacca Straits – after its communications were cut.

Correspondents say many families are hoping the objects seen in the Indian Ocean are not debris from the plane, as they are holding on to hope that their relatives could be alive somewhere.

Wen Wancheng, whose 33-year-old son Wen Yongsheng was on the plane, said: "What wreckage? In a few days they are going to say it's not true.
"[The Malaysian authorities] need to stop giving us false information. I simply don't believe them any more."

BBN/SSR/AD-22Mar14-11:11 am (BST)