ABC: Possible MH370 debris found
china.org.cn / chinagate.cn, March 20, 2014 Adjust font size:
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has announced objects possibly related to the search for the missing Malaysian Airlines plane have been found in the southern Indian Ocean. The Australian Broadcasting Corporationn reports today.
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The scanned version of the map released on March 19, 2014 by Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) shows the search area for the second day has been reduced to 300,000 square kilometers from 600,000 square kilometers a day before. The area is also closer to Western Australian coast. The search operation for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in the Southern Indian Ocean has continued in the Australian Search and Rescue Region, the AMSA said on Wednesday. [Xinhua photo] |
![The scanned version of the map released on March 19, 2014 by Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) shows the search area for the second day has been reduced to 300,000 square kilometers from 600,000 square kilometers a day before. The area is also closer to Western Australian coast. The search operation for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in the Southern Indian Ocean has continued in the Australian Search and Rescue Region, the AMSA said on Wednesday. [Xinhua]](http://images.chinagate.cn/attachement/jpg/site1021/20140320/001372a0ea801494b46437.jpg "The scanned version of the map released on March 19, 2014 by Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) shows the search area for the second day has been reduced to 300,000 square kilometers from 600,000 square kilometers a day before. The area is also closer to Western Australian coast. The search operation for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in the Southern Indian Ocean has continued in the Australian Search and Rescue Region, the AMSA said on Wednesday. [Xinhua]")
Australian search planes have been diverted to find two objects in the southern Indian Ocean "possibly related" to the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott told Parliament that "new and credible information has come to light" relating to the search.
"The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) has received information based on satellite imagery of objects possibly related to the search," he said.
"Following specialist analysis of this satellite imagery, two possible objects related to the search have been identified."
The Prime Minister said he had spoken with his Malaysian counterpart, Najib Razak, and cautioned that the objects had yet to be identified.
Mr Abbott said a RAAF Orion has been diverted to find the objects and was expected to reach the area around 2:15 AEDT.
He said three more aircraft would follow.
"They are tasked for more intensive follow-up search," he added.
Mr Abbott warned the task of locating the objects will be "extremely difficult", and "it may turn out that they are not related to the search."
Flight MH370 has been missing since it disappeared en route to Beijing from Malaysia on March 8.
So far the investigation has focused on the possibility that the plane was deliberately diverted from its flight path.
The plane is thought to have travelled in either of two directions: north west into Asia or south west into the Indian Ocean.
Australia has been leading the search in the southern vector, specifically an area 3,000 kilometres south-west of Perth.
AMSA says the search zone covers 600,000 square kilometres of ocean and has been plotted using data based on the last satellite relay signals sent by the plane.
The search now encompasses an area stretching 7.7 million square kilometres - an area larger than the entire land mass of Australia.
Last night a source close to the investigation told Reuters that authorities probing the jet's disappearance believed it most likely flew into the southern Indian Ocean.
That view was based on the lack of any evidence from countries along the northern corridor that the plane entered their airspace, and the failure to find any trace of wreckage in searches in the upper part of the southern corridor.
"The working assumption is that it went south, and furthermore that it went to the southern end of that corridor," said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
China, which is leading the northern corridor search with Kazakhstan, said it had not yet found any sign of the aircraft crossing into its territory.
Malaysian and US officials believe the aircraft was deliberately diverted perhaps thousands of miles off course, but an exhaustive background search of the passengers and crew aboard has not yielded anything that might explain why.
Last week, a source familiar with official US assessments said it was thought most likely the plane flew south, where it presumably would have run out of fuel and crashed into the sea.
