Was this the most confusing news conference ever?

Malaysian civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman’s statement that two men on the flight carrying invalid passports looked like black footballer Balotelli was greeted by laughter at the press briefing, despite the fact that all 239 people on board the Boeing 777 are feared dead.

Do you know a footballer by the name of (Mario) Balotelli? (This is) what he looks like.

Mr Rahman dodged futher questions about the two passengers but admitted they were looking into whether the fake passports were part of an organised racket.

We are looking at the possibility of a stolen passport syndicate.

He also said an oil slick found about 100 nautical miles off the coast of Kelantan is not from the Malaysia Airlines flight.

The result of the analysis is negative. The samples are not from MH370. The samples are actually from a ship.

Mr Rahman admitted that the search team had so far failed to find anything that resembled an aircraft.

Unfortunately we have not found anything that appears to be objects from the aircraft, let alone the aircraft.

In concluding the conference, Mr Rahman, said reports of life rafts were “very upsetting for families” involved.

They say it’s very distressing for families to hear there may be something like a life raft out in the ocean, only to have their hopes dashed just a short time later.