Malaysia searching Andaman Sea for missing plane: official

Kuala Lumpur: The international search for a missing Malaysian airliner has been expanded into the Andaman Sea, hundreds of kilometres (miles) to the northwest of the original search radius, an official said on Wednesday.

Flight MH370 went missing early on Saturday with 239 people on board en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, sparking a massive search across Southeast Asia.

Malaysian civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said ships and planes were now also searching in the southern part of the Andaman Sea.

"Yes, above Sumatra is the Andaman Sea," he told AFP, when asked to confirm whether assets were being deployed in the Andaman Sea. "It's a very big area to cover... We are not going to leave any chance. We have to look at every possibility."

Sumatra is a large Indonesian island south of the Andaman Sea. The body of water is off Thailand's west coast.

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Authorities have expanded the search after earlier citing radar data they said indicates a "possibility" that the plane may have changed course from its intended flight path over the South China Sea.

Officials have yet to provide any further clarification on the radar data they referred to.

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Authorities have been searching since Saturday in the South China Sea between Malaysia and Vietnam.

The effort has found no trace of the plane, sparking one of the greatest aviation mysteries in memory.

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