A Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN) combat vessel with seven onboard lost contact with an escort vessel while heading to an RMN station on Layang-Layang atoll off Malaysia's eastern state of Sabah, the country's state news agency Bernama reported on Monday.
It quoted Chief of Navy Abdul Aziz Jaafar as saying that the CB90 type of combat vessel, assigned to operate from RMN Station Five on the atoll, lost communication with the escort vessel KD Paus during the voyage.
He said in a statement that the vessel left the RMN base in Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah, at 5 a.m. on Sunday and lost contact with the escort vessel at 11:15 a.m., adding that the incident occurred during bad weather around Pulau Mengalum, an island in Sabah.
Abdul Aziz said a search operation had been carried out by RMN assets, the Royal Malaysian Air Force and the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency.