More oil slicks have been found close to where Malaysia Airlines' MH370 was last contacted.

 

Bernama Radio reported that the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) found the slicks at about 11am today, some 100 nautical miles off the coast of Tok Bali, Kelantan.

 

This is some 20 nautical miles from where the missing Boeing 777-200, which was an hour into its flight to Beijing, was last spotted on radar.

 

Meanwhile, the Star quoted MMEA director-general Mohd Amdan Kurish as saying that there were “two or three” patches of “yellowish” oil slicks spotted, measuring 10 miles (16 kilometres) each.

"A ship has been despatched to the location of the slicks to take samples so we could test whether the oil is from a plane," he reportedly said.

The findings come as Malaysian authorities confirm Vietnamese findings of two oil slicks measuring six and nine miles (10 to 15 kilometres) long off 250 nautical miles from the coast off Tho Chu island, on the south of Vietnam.

It is not yet ascertained if the slicks found off the Vietnamese shore were consistent with the fuel used by the plane which went missing more than 36 hours ago at 1.30am yesterday.

The discovery of slicks indicates that the plane may have crashed, as fuel dumping is an emergency procedure employed in emergency situations to reduce aircraft weight and risk of fire.

The plane which was due to arrive in Beijing at 6.30am was carrying 239 passengers and crew, mostly Chinese national and Malaysians, including two infants.