Chinese rescuers on way to salvage mission

SANYA, March 9 -- An emergency response team sent by the Ministry of Transport set out early Sunday morning from south China's Sanya Port in Hainan Province to sea area where missing Malaysia Airline flight MH 370 may have crashed.

The rescue vessel "South China Sea Rescue 101" is carrying 12 divers and salvagers, and will join another rescue vessel "South China Sea Rescue 115" to the rescue site.

The rescue work remains challenging as there is no exact location of the possible crash site and it will take about two days for the rescue ship to reach the water, said Zeng Ying, leader of the emergency team.

"But we will try our best," said Zeng.

The distance between the possible crash site to Sanya Port is about 700 sea miles. Both of the rescue vessels have helipads which enables air search and rescue.

"South China Sea Rescue 101" is 109.7 meters long, with 6,200 tonnes of full load displacement.

A Boeing 777-200 aircraft operated by Malaysia Airlines left the Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 00:41 a.m. Beijing time on Saturday and was expected to land in Beijing at 6:30 a.m., after a 3,700-km trip.

Contact with the flight was lost along with its radar signal at 1:20 a.m. Beijing time on Saturday when it was flying over the Ho Chi Minh air traffic control area in Vietnam.

The flight has 12 crew members and 227 passengers, including 154 Chinese, and 12 Malaysian flight crew.