Wellington  - A Royal New Zealand Air Force plane continued to comb thousands of square kilometres of the Pacific Ocean on Friday, looking for 29 missing fishermen whose burnt boat was found 12 days back.

According to a Defence Force statement, an initial search for the crew of Taiwanese, Chinese, Filipino and Indonesian nationals from the Ta Ching 21 was conducted by a US Air Force C-130 Hercules on November 12 without success.

The Taiwanese long liner was found on November 9 by a Korean fishing boat, which reported that the ship's three life rafts and a rescue boat were missing and it appeared the crew had abandoned their vessel after it caught fire.

Crew of the Orion maritime surveillance aircraft found no trace of the life rafts, despite 12 hours of searching waters around Fiji on Thursday, a Defence Force spokesman said.

The low-level search resumed after the crew rested overnight in Samoa and the spokesman said it would continue at least until Saturday.

The Orion's captain, Squadron Leader Mike Pearson, was reported as saying the search was particularly challenging because the Ta Ching 21 had no rescue beacon to target in on. (dpa)