MH370 crash: Aircraft departures spread to better cover search

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CANBERRA: Aircraft from six nations depart from the southwest Australian city of Perth in staggered schedule to comb the southern Indian Ocean for signs of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, China's Xinhua news agency reported.

With a four-hour flight covering 2,500 km each way, the 12 aircraft taking part Wednesday will have about two hours each over the search area, so the staggered departures allow newly arrived aircraft to take over monitoring if another aircraft spots objects in the water.