Beijing, March 12 (IANS): China sent a third military aircraft Wednesday to help search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane as the search range expanded to land areas.

The Chinese air force plane will join the two aircraft sent Tuesday to check for black box signals above waters suspected to be the crash site of the missing jet, Xinhua reported citing a military spokesman.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 with 239 people on board vanished without a trace about an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur early Saturday. The Boeing 777-200ER was presumed to have crashed off the Vietnamese coast into the South China Sea.

The plane took off from Kuala Lumpur at 12.41 a.m. Saturday and was due to land in Beijing at 6.30 a.m. the same day. The 227 passengers on the flight included five Indians, 154 Chinese and 38 Malaysians.

Contact with the plane was lost along with its radar signal at 1.40 a.m. Saturday when it was flying over the Ho Chi Minh air traffic control area in Vietnam.

As of late afternoon Wednesday, eight Chinese vessels, including three warships, had arrived and were conducting search operations in the waters, without finding debris or objects from the plane.

Dozens of vessels and aircraft from various countries have joined the search. Vietnam's military said that it would also conduct search operations on land areas along two flight routes.

China has also employed 10 satellites to provide technological support in attempts to locate the missing aircraft.