Missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370: Obama mocks CNN coverage of jetliner mystery

The US president took aim at the network for its extensive coverage

President Obama at the 2014 White House Correspondents Association dinner

The US President Barack Obama has used his speech at the annual White House Correspondents' dinner to mock CNN’s around-the-clock coverage of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

Mr Obama told an audience of journalists from major news organisations: "I am happy to be here even though I am a little jetlagged from my trip to Malaysia - the lengths we have to go to to get CNN coverage these days."

He went added: "I think they're still searching for their table," to laughter and applause.

The plane vanished on 8 March with 239 people on board while travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

Mr Obama’s comments followed criticism over CNN's exhaustive reporting in the two months since the jetliner disappeared.

Talk show host and former CNN employee recently slammed the network for turning the event into “the most absurd news story”.

“The funny thing about it is that in all this time, which I guess is approaching six weeks, the only thing we know is that it made a left turn,” he told Capital New York. “We don’t know anything else, so I have learned nothing, and all that coverage has led to nothing.”

No trace of the missing Boeing 777 has been found in what has become the most expensive recovery operation in history. Authorities have set out a new search area which it could take them up to a year to cover.

Experts have narrowed the search area where the plane is presumed to have crashed to a large arc of the Indian Ocean about 1,600 km (1,000 miles) northwest of the west Australian city of Perth.