BEIJING, March 24. /ITAR-TASS/. Chinese airplanes have detected in the Indian Ocean several objects that may be debris of missing Malaysian Boeing, Chinese news agency Xinhua reported on Monday.

It was reported earlier that two Ilyushin Il-76 airplanes of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force joined the search operation in the southern part of the Indian Ocean on Monday. Thus, ten airplanes from Australia, New Zealand, the United States, China and Japan are participating in the search operation on Monday. China has also dispatched research icebreaker Xue Long (Snow Dragon) to search the missing airliner.

Chinese airplanes flied to join the search operation, after the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) reported that it had detected two objects drifting around 2,500 kilometers southwest of Perth, Australia. Later, Chinese and French authorities also stated that some suspicious objects were spotted in the Indian Ocean. Chinese satellites have detected them in the southern corridor of the search area in the Indian Ocean around 120 kilometers away from the place, where other two objects, presumably the plane’s debris, were spotted, according to AMSA.

Boeing 777-200 of the Malaysian Airlines was en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 7. The airliner was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crewmembers. Radio contact was lost with the airliner two hours after its departure from the Malaysian capital. Later, electronic radars detected that the airliner had changed the route and made a sharp turn to the Indian Ocean.