Malaysia under fire over chaotic search for missing jet

KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 12 (AFP): Malaysia denied Wednesday that the hunt for a missing jet was in disarray, after the search veered far from its planned route and China said that conflicting information about its course was "pretty chaotic".

Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said Malaysia would "never give up hope" of finding the plane's 239 passengers and crew, dismissing allegations that efforts were mired in confusion after a series of false alarms, rumours and contradictory statements.

"I don't think so. It's far from it. It's only confusion if you want it to be seen as confusion," he said at a press conference where military and civilian officials faced a grilling from a combative crowd of journalists.

"I think it's not a matter of chaos. There are a lot of speculations that we have answered in the last few days," he said.

The hunt for Malaysia Airlines flight 370, involving the navies and air forces of multiple nations, had focused on an area off Vietnam's South China Sea coast where it last made contact Saturday on a journey from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

But Malaysian authorities said Wednesday they were expanding the search to the Andaman Sea north of Indonesia, hundreds of kilometres (miles) away.

"So right now there is a lot of information, and it's pretty chaotic, so up to this point we too have had difficulty confirming whether it is accurate or not," China's foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said of accounts of the jet's course.

Malaysian air force chief General Rodzali Daud attempted to explain why the search zone had been expanded, telling the press conference that military radar detected an unidentified object early Saturday north of the Malacca Strait off Malaysia's west coast.

He said that the reading, taken less than an hour after the plane lost contact over the South China Sea, was still being investigated and they were not able to confirm it was MH370.

The confusion has fuelled perceptions that Malaysian authorities are unable to handle a crisis on this scale, and infuriated relatives gathered in Beijing and Kuala Lumpur as they endure an unbearable wait for news of their loved ones.

Malaysia's ambassador to China, Iskandar Sarudin, reportedly told relatives of some of the 153 Chinese passengers on board the plane that "now is not the time" to reveal what information the military may have on its route.