Search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 suspended after confirmation it went down in Indian Ocean

THE CEO of Malaysia Airlines says the airline has extended its prayers to the families of the 239 passengers on board missing Flight MH370.

Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said he was devastated the passengers didn’t make it to their destination alive.

“We do not know why, we do not know how this terrible tragedy happened. But as MAS family, we all praying for passengers & crew of MH370,” he told a media conference in Kuala Lumpur.

The airline was criticised for informing relatives by text message that the plane had crashed, but the CEO said they did so as they wanted the families to hear the news before the rest of the world.

Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said all next-of-kin relatives had been paid $5000. He said the Australian Government would only grant visas to relatives once evidence of the plane had been found.

Asked if he would resign, he said it was a personal decision, and it would be taken later.

In Beijing, hundreds of angry protesters, many of them relatives of passengers, gathered at the Malaysian embassy to demonstrate against the Malaysia’s handling of the disaster.

The search effort for wreckage from the lost airliner will be boosted later today with the arrival of a South Korean C-130 Hercules transport and P-3 Orion maritime surveillance aircraft at the RAAF’s Pearce base near Perth.

The hunt for debris was suspended earlier due to bad weather as huge seas slammed the search area.

At midday today the sea state was estimated at between six and seven on the World Meteorological Organisation chart and that means waves of between four and nine metres.

Such conditions make finding or retrieving any debris virtually impossible and they increase the risk of wreckage sinking under the weight of the waves.