Planes find no debris near site China spotted objects

Search planes have found no trace of a missing Malaysian airliner near the site where Chinese satellites spotted floating objects, officials said Thursday.

Two Vietnamese aircraft sent to inspect areas nearby "have returned and we found nothing so far", Civil Aviation Authority deputy director Dinh Viet Thang told AFP on the sixth day of the hunt for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

A Malaysian plane dispatched to the area also saw nothing as of early afternoon Thursday, according to the Malaysian air force's director-general of operations, Affendi Buang.

"Nil sighting," he said in a text message to AFP.

The Chinese satellite images provided a new lead in the search for the Boeing 777, which vanished on Saturday with 239 people on board during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

The search has suffered several false alarms over suspected debris.

AFP