A major search operation was launched after the plane flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing lost communication in Vietnam’s airspace at 1.20am local time.
A leading aviation safety expert has said it is ‘extraordinary’ that the pilots of the jetliner did not make a distress call.
The Boeing B777-200 aircraft would have been cruising at about 35,000 feet when it lost contact over the South China Sea.
It would have given the pilots ‘plenty of time’ to report any technical problems, Flight Global’s operations and safety editor David Learmount said.
There was no confirmation that the slicks were related to the missing plane, but they were consistent with the kinds that would be produced by the two fuel tanks of a crashed jetliner.
It also emerged that two names listed on the manifest of the missing flight match passports reported stolen in Thailand, foreign ministry officials in Rome and Vienna have confirmed.
Italy’s foreign ministry said that an Italian man whose name was listed as being on board the Boeing 777 is travelling in Thailand and was not on the plane.
Two infants were also on board.
Search and rescue official reported that signals from the plane were detected about 120 nautical miles (140 miles) south-west of Vietnam’s southernmost Ca Mau province.
‘Focus of the airline is to work with the emergency responders and authorities and mobilise its full support.
‘Our thoughts and prayers are with all affected passengers and crew and their family members,’ he added.
A woman wept aboard the shuttle bus while saying on a mobile phone: ‘They want us to go to the hotel. It cannot be good.’
The Boeing 777 had not had a fatal crash in its 20-year history until the Asiana crash in San Francisco in July 2013. Three passengers were killed
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