(VOVworld) – Lieutenant General Vo Van Tuan, deputy head of the General Staff of the Viet Nam People's Army, said on Tuesday that Vietnam’s plans to search for the missing Malaysian plane remains unchanged and that they expect to expand to the East as well as the mainland. On Wednesday, 22 airplanes and 31 ships including 8 Vietnamese planes and 9 ships took part in the searching work.

On the same day, Chu Xuan Huy, Head of the Department of Management and Exploitation of satellite data at Vietnam’s Academy of Science and Technology said at 10 p.m on Tuesday that they had received image data transmitted by VNREDSAT-1 from the area where the Malaysian Airlines plane had been reported missing, near Tho Chu island. According to initial analysis, no suspicious signal has been found so far. The VNREDSAT-1 is scheduled to return to the suspected area on Thursday to take more pictures.

The global public has highly appreciated Vietnam’s efforts in searching for the missing Malaysian plane. China’s Global Times on Tuesday ran an article by Xu Li Ping, a specialist from the Asia-Pacific Strategic Studies Institute, which hailed Vietnam’s active support in the search. The article said that with Malaysia’s support, Vietnam had immediately deployed planes and ships to join the search in the relevant coastal areas. Vietnam also mobilized its air and naval forces to work closely with other countries in the large-scale effort. The BBC and CNN have been updating the latest news using Vietnamese TV and websites.