KUALA LUMPUR, March 13 -- The Malaysian air force Thursday morning sent an aircraft on an 8-hour search mission in areas around Subang, Penang, Phuket and Andaman Sea, but found no trace of the missing jet liner, the pilot of the mission said.

At 5 a.m., the C130 transport aircraft took off from Subang Air Force Airport with about a height of 760 meters and flew to Andaman Sea, covering the area around Subang, Penang and Phuket. But nothing has been found.

Malaysia's acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Tun Hussein said Thursday on his Twitter that the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) had sent an aircraft to the South China Sea where Chinese satellites have reportedly captured images of floating objects.

"MMEA's Bombardier has already been dispatched to investigate claims of debris found by Chinese satellite imagery," Hussein said.

It was reported that the satellite images showed three suspected floating objects of various sizes, the largest one estimated to be roughly 22 metres by 24 metres in size.

The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 left Kuala Lumpur at 0:41 a.m. Beijing time on Saturday and was expected to land in Beijing at 6:30 a.m..

Contact with the aircraft was lost while it was over the Ho Chi Minh City air traffic control area in Vietnam.

The flight was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, including 154 Chinese.