Missing Malaysian airline: Boeing official puts safety concerns at rest

A senior Boeing official allayed concerns over the safety of their planes amid the mystery surrounding the fate of the missing Malaysian jetliner, saying they had also joined the global search operation covering an area stretching from China to the Andaman Sea.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared from civilian radar screens and a huge international search operation into its sixth day has failed to turn up any trace of the Boeing jetliner that was carrying 239 passengers and crew.

"There are competent authorities in the world who are working 24-hours a day and looking at what's happening. There are multiple countries involved including India just joined the effort. Boeing has been invited and we are working with them. That's all I can tell you. I don't want to even remotely speculate what has happened to it. It will be unfair for the families that are involved. It will be unfair to the airline which is again part of my customer base. I cover Asia and Malaysia as part of that and I am in touch with them on regular basis and we pray that we soon find out what is going on," Senior Vice President of Sales, Dinesh Keskar told a news conference at an aviation show in Hyderabad.

"Of course, everybody is concerned about what happened to the MAS airplane but life is going on. I am going to fly tonight back to US. I am not going to sit in Hyderabad for rest of the year. So, it's the same thing. I think it's safe to fly, 87 is safe to fly, never been a safety issue with any of the Boeing airplanes," he added.

On Thursday, Defence Ministry had ordered the deployment of ships, aircraft and helicopters from the remote Andaman and Nicobar Islands to search for the missing airliner.

The armed forces will hold a meeting later on Thursday evening to decide how to coordinate their search efforts with other countries, after which they will make deployments, a senior Indian command officer said.