There are 34 planes, 40 ships and search crews from eight different countries. Yet, officials have found no sign of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 that went missing two days ago.
"Unfortunately, ladies and gentlemen, we have not found anything that appear to be objects from the aircraft, let alone the aircraft," Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, director general of the Malaysian civil aviation department, told reporters on Monday.
As worried family members are awaiting for any progress, they have been told to be prepared for worse.
Officials have not ruled out hijacking as a possible explanation of the plane's disappearance, as it was earlier reported that two men in the aircraft were travelling with stolen passports.
After the airline released the list of 239 people on the plane, Austriadenied the presence of one of its citizens in the flight as the list had stated. The Austrian citizen was safe, while his passport was stolen two years ago.
Similarly, Italy's foreign ministry confirmed that no Italians were on the flight, as an Italian was listed on the manifest. Malaysian officials said that they were aware of the stolen passports.
Earlier on Sunday, there were also reports suggesting that a plane door had been spotted in the waters.
"That report was not verified officially by the Vietnamese authorities," Rahman said.
Another report had also suggested that the plane's tail had been sighted. That was also not confirmed, he added.
The only lead the investigators have is an oil slick that a Vietnamese plane spotted, around 90 miles south of the Tho Chu Island in the Gulf of Thailand.
The slick that stretched between 6 and 9 miles is being lab-tested, reports suggest.
Mystery and Puzzle
Various aviation analysts are perplexed on the mysterious disappearance as no aircraft could possibly vanish without leaving any trace of what had happened.
"For the aircraft to go missing just like that...as far as we are concerned, we are equally puzzled as well," Rahman said.
"We have to find the aircraft," he added that they were intensifying efforts to find the plane, and the search would "take as long as it takes".
"We are every hour, every second looking at every area of the sea," he added.
Just Vanished
The Flight MH370 that operated on a Boeing 777-200 aircraft departed Kuala Lampur at 12.41 am on Saturday and was bound for Beijing. The aircraft was scheduled to land at Beijing International Airport at 6:30 am local Beijing time.
The Malaysia Airlines was carrying 239 people onboard, including two infants and 12 crew members. The passengers were of 14 different nationalities. 152 plus one infant among them were Chinese, Malaysia Airlines has confirmed in a release. According to various Indian news outlets, 5 among the passengers were Indian.
The flight MH370 lost contact with Subang Air Traffic Control at 2.40 am local time on Saturday. There were speculations that the aircraft landed at Nanming. The authorities have said that they were working to verify the authenticity of the reports.
(Edited by Anu James)