New report says Malaysia Airlines jet stayed in air for four more hours

The Malaysian government has denied China’s report that debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines jet has surfaced the over the South China Sea, as the country’s Xinhua News Agency reported Wednesday.

“There is nothing. We went there, there is nothing,” said acting Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein.

After nearly six days of an international search, the whereabouts of the plane or its wreckage remain unclear.

The Wall Street Journal reported early Thursday that U.S. investigators suspect that the plane stayed in the air for about four hours past the time it reached its last confirmed location. The paper reports that U.S. counterterrorism officials are pursuing the possibility that the plane may have been diverted to an undisclosed location.

The Boeing 777, which left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing, vanished on Saturday and nothing has been seen or heard of the jetliner since. The plane was carrying 239 people.