- US Navy aircraft already scouring the search zone
- Experts believe the objects are credible sightings
CANBERRA Authorities should know something definite on the possible discovery of debris from missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370 within “two or three days’’, Defence Minister David Johnston says.
Australia’s defence forces were doing everything they could in one of the most remote locations in the world, Senator Johnston told AAP in Jakarta tonight where he was attending an international defence dialogue.
A Norwegian ship, the St Petersburg, has reached area of the Indian Ocean where possible debris were spotted, shipping company Hoeeg Autoliners said.
Earlier Mr Johnston told Sky News that the operation to find debris will be a “logistical nightmare”.
“This is a terribly complex logistical operation to identify what we have found via the satellite,” he said.
“We are in a most isolated part of the world, in fact it probably doesn’t get, if I can be so bold, more isolated.
“We are doing everything we can to try to solve this potentially tragic mystery.”
The first search plane arrived back to Perth this evening, confirming it was not able to find debris. Limited visibility hampered the search for flight MH370.
Two large objects identified by satellite in the Indian Ocean off Perth may be related to missing Flight MH370 and are “possible indications of debris”.
Describing the “credible sightings” as the best lead investigators currently have, Australian Maritime Safety Authority general manager John Young said the objects were “relatively indistinct on imagery”.
One was about 24-metres long, approximately double the length of a standard shipping container, while the other one was smaller, and about five metres in length.
A flight crew combing the southern Indian Ocean for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 said they are getting radar hits of “significant size,” indicating something lying below the water’s surface, ABC News America also reports.
But it is not known if the objects are plane debris.
However, those who’ve analysed the objects say they are a “credible” lead.
“Those who are experts indicate they are credible sightings,” Mr Young told a press conference in Canberra this afternoon. “The indication to me is of objects that are of reasonable size and awash with water, bobbing up and down on the surface.”
This is one of the objects seen on satellite imagery.
Satellite imagery provided to AMSA ... of objects that may be possible debris of the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in a revised area 185 km to the south east of the original search area. Source:Supplied
This is the other objected which was detected. It is 5m long.
The second object spotted via satellite ... which is 5m long. Source: Supplied
PM SAYS DEBRIS FIRST ‘TANGIBLE BREAKTHROUGH’
Prime Minister Tony Abbott says the discovery of as-yet unidentified debris 3000km off Australia appears to be the first “tangible breakthrough” in the hunt for missing Malaysia aircraft MH370.
Speaking after arriving in the Papua New Guinea capital of Port Moresby tonight, Mr Abbott said Australia would do whatever it could to try to identify the items.
“We had satellite imagery which indicated there were two large objects in the Southern Ocean. We are talking about an extraordinarily remote spot about 3000km southwest of Perth,” he said.
“It is a remarkably isolated location in very deep and inaccessible ocean.
“Nevertheless we are throwing all the resources we can at it. We will have as much maritime searching as we can and we have got six aircraft available for the job. “
Mr Abbott said the items picked up on satellite could not be confirmed until a closer look was able to be carried out.
“But this is the first tangible breakthrough in what up until now has been an utterly baffling mystery,” he said.
“We do have pretty strong satellite imagery and obviously this is a very serious lead in the way that nothing else so far really has been.
“It’s very close to the predicted southern flight corridor and that I suppose reinforces our suspicion that just maybe this is the first tangible evidence we’ve got of what might have happened.”
DEBRIS CORROBARATED BY MORE THAN ONE SATELLITE: MALAYSIA
Malaysia’s Defence and acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein says the satellite images of what appears to be debris is corroborated by more than one satellite.
He said this is why the latest sightings off Perth are more credible than previous sightings of debris.
Mr Hussein said the information from Australia was “corroborated to a certain extent from other satellites”.
He said the search for MH370 would continue in both the northern and southern corridors but most assets have now been deployed in the south.
There are now 25 aircraft and 18 ships searching the southern corridor. A merchant ship is on the way to the last known location of the debris and was due to arrive late yesterday. A Royal Australian Navy vessel is also on the way.
“For the families around the world, the one piece of information that we want most, that they want most, is the information we just don’t have, the location of MH370,” Mr Hussein said.
“Our primary focus has always been to find the aircraft and with every passing day our efforts have intensified.”
The priority is finding the plane and its black box if there is to be any chance of finding out what happened to the Boeing 777-200.
“We must never never give up hope,” Mr Hussien said.
Asked what he would tell the families, Mr Hussein said: “I will tell them, whatever we find, my sympathies, my heart is with them all the time … I do feel for them and I say that on record and I say that to the world. We do care for them and we can understand, we can try to understand what they are going through.”
Mr Hussein admitted regret at an incident at the media centre on Wednesday when an anguished Chinese mother was dragged away screaming from the media.
Authorities were due to brief all the next of kin of passengers and crew in Kuala Lumpur last night.
If the plane is found in the vast waters off Perth, authorities say they will make arrangements for family members to travel there.
And, 13 days into the search and investigation, authorities say that despite saying the plane’s communications systems being turned off deliberately by someone on board, they had not ruled out a catastrophic event having occurred on the plane.
DEBRIS COULD HAVE DRIFTED HUNDREDS OF KM AWAY
Ocean expert Robin Beaman said debris could have been carried hundreds of kilometres since the satellite images were captured on March 16.
“The currents are drifting at one or two nautical miles per hour so it certainly makes sense that it could have drifted several hundred miles by now,” he said.
“There’d be parts of the plane that could float for some time but certainly not indefinitely. Eventually parts like that will become waterlogged and sink to the sea floor so it’s time critical,’’ he said.
“The wind is moving in an easterly direction which means anything floating on the surface will also drift in that direction but at some point it just becomes waterlogged and sinks.”
Dr Beaman, from James Cook University, said it will be difficult to locate debris in such deep waters.
“It also depends on the weather. There would be waves breaking from the wind speed,” he said.
“The higher the wind speed the harder it is to detect something floating on the sea surface when you start having clutter so they’d be using radar, heat sensors and all sorts of other technology to locate debris.
“It could be like your classic ship wreck site. Heavy items sink faster so they’d drop to the sea floor and lighter fragments could have been carried downstream by the current. Almost like a comet effect of debris on the sea floor.”
SEARCH UNDERWAY IN REMOTE AREA
A US Navy P8 Poseidon aircraft is already in the remote search area, which is about 2500km southwest of Perth, and a RAAF Orion aircraft was expected to arrive this afternoon.
Additional aircraft are also expected to follow for a more intensive search.
Mr Young cautioned that the objects would be difficult to locate and may not even be related to the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, which vanished en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur on March 8 with 239 people on board.
“It’s probably the best lead we have right now but we have to get there, find them, see them, assess them, to know whether it’s really meaningful or not,’’ he said.
Reacting to the news, Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said the potential breakthrough gave reason for hope of a resolution to the crisis, but stressed the need to verify the claim.
“We have been very consistent. We want to verify, we want to corroborate,’’ Mr Hussein said.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak also tweeted:
Under the microscope ... the search area Australia has been charged with Source: Supplied
Mr Young said higher resolution satellite images were being taken. “These will be provided in due course,” he said.
He cautioned against any hasty expectations of an outcome because of unfavourable weather conditions.
“We may get a sighting, we may not. We may get it tomorrow, we may not,’’ he said. “But we will continue to do this until we locate those objects or we are convinced that we cannot find them.’’
When asked what advice he had for the families of those on the missing flight, he replied: “I would advise that AMSA is doing it’s level best to find anyone that may have survived.”
An Australian Hercules is expected to drop marker buoys in the area highlighted by the satellite imagery while a merchant ship that responded to a shipping broadcast issued by Rescue Coordination Australia on Monday is expected to arrive this evening.
Credible sighting ... AMSA general manager John Young. Source: Supplied
Prime Minister Tony Abbott had earlier revealed the satellite discovery in federal parliament.
“The Australian Maritime Safety Authority has received information based on satellite imagery of objects possibly related to the search,” Mr Abbott said at the start of Question Time, wanting to provide an update on “new and credible” information.
Mr Abbott said he had spoken to his Malaysian counterpart Najib Razak and informed him of the developments.
But the PM insisted the task of locating the objects will be very difficult and they might not turn out to be related to the missing plane.
Looking ... crew on board an AP-3C Orion over the southern Indian Ocean. Source: AP
“We must keep in mind the task of locating these objects will be extremely difficult and it may turn out that they are not related to the search for flight MH370,” he said.
Malaysian authorities have asked Australia to take responsibility for the “southern vector’’ of the operation to locate the Boeing 777.
They believe the jet was deliberately diverted and flew for several hours after leaving its scheduled flight path — either north towards Central Asia, or towards the southern Indian Ocean.
Australian, US and New Zealand long-range surveillance planes have been scouring a vast tract of the southern Indian Ocean since Tuesday with the search focused on an area of 305,000 square kilometres, some 2,600km southeast of Perth.
Assets involved in the search include a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) P3 Orion, a US Navy P8 Poseidon aircraft and a Royal New Zealand Air Force P3 Orion.
In total, four RAAF AP-3C Orion aircraft have been assigned to the search task being coordinated by AMSA.
Pre-mission prep ... RAAF crew in WA get ready to join the search. Picture: Colin Murty Source:News Corp Australia
SEARCHING THE ‘MOST ISOLATED PART OF THE WORLD’
Four aircraft, including a Royal Australian Air Force Orion and a United States Navy P8 Poseidon, have been dispatched to what Australian Defence Minister David Johnston described as “a most isolated part of the world”.
“It’s a logistical nightmare. This is a terribly complex logistical operation to identify what we have found via the satellite,” he said in a television interview.
The AP-3C Orion is an extremely versatile aircraft used to conduct long-range surveillance missions throughout the Indian and Pacific oceans.
The Orions are fitted with radar, infra-red and visual systems which allow crew to see objects at night and in the distance, as well as magnetic anomaly detectors which help in identifying metal.
The Poseidon is an even more advanced aircraft described by the US as a long-range anti-submarine warfare, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance plane aircraft capable of broad-area maritime operations.
AMSA’s Rescue Coordination Centre, which works around the clock and is responsible for the national coordination of both maritime and aviation search and rescues, has experience in difficult conditions.
In December, it led the rescue of dozens of passengers and scientists stranded on a Russian ship stuck in ice in blizzards off Antarctica, a crisis which sparked a global operation to pluck them from frozen seas.
In May 2013, it coordinated the rescue of Dutch adventurer Ralph Tuijn from the Indian Ocean after his attempt to row from Australia to Africa ended when his boat collided with a massive oil tanker.
It has also been instrumental in coordinating the rescue in recent years of hundreds of asylum-seekers whose boats sometimes sink as they try to reach Australia from Indonesia.
RELATIVES PREPARE FOR THE WORST
The Chinese authorities are preparing for the worst in Beijing.
Medical staff and police have arrived at a hotel where relatives of the passengers of the Beijing-bound flight have gathered.
Scores of police and at least five ambulances have been spotted at the hotel, the BBC reports.
Chinese relatives of the passengers ... onboard Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 wait for the latest information at Lido Hotel in Beijing, China. Picture: Lintao Zhang Source: Getty Images
SIMULATOR UNDER SCRUTINY
The news comes as Malaysian and FBI authorities investigating the home flight simulator data from MH370 pilot Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah will look first at the level of security he used to protect his files to determine whether he was trying to hide something.
Files containing records of flight simulations were deleted on February 3 from the device found in the home of Captain Shah, Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said late on Wednesday.
Experts say the level of security used to protect those deleted files will provide the first clue in the investigation.
While it is not clear whether investigators think that deleting the files was unusual, they might hold signs of unusual flight paths that could help explain where the missing plane went.
“Chances are that it will be very low level encryption and it will be easily recovered,” said Deakin University cyber security expert Professor Matthew Warren.
Encryption in focus ... Captain Shah’s personal flight simulator. Source: Facebook
“What would be interesting if they find high level encryption and data scrubbing systems in place. If these techniques or countermeasures are in place, it would raise a lot of questions.”
Captain Shah, 53, an experienced pilot who joined Malaysia Airlines in 1981, had built a homemade flight simulator in his two-storey home outside Kuala Lumpur.
Experts from the FBI are working with Malaysian authorities to help recover the deleted data.
Australian National University security expert Professor Clive Williams said it would not take long for them to recover what they are looking for.
“I’m sure they can reconstruct it,” he said.
“They can get information out of pretty much anything.”
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorised to discuss the investigation by name, said it was important to remember that “the pilots, the passengers and the crew remain innocent until proven otherwise.”
“For the sake of their families I ask that we refrain from any unnecessary speculation that may make an already difficult time even harder,” he said.
Boeing 777 ... a cheap flight system upgrade may have helped track MH370. Source: Supplied
In his first on camera comments on the mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, US President Barack Obama said the search was a “top priority’’ for the United States and offered every possible resource — including the FBI.
Obama offered thoughts and prayers to the relatives of the missing passengers.
“We have put every resource that we have available at the disposal of the search process,’’ he said. “There has been close cooperation with the Malaysian government.’’
Obama said the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board and any agency or official that deals with aviation was at the disposal of the investigation.
Deleted files being investigated ... Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah. Source: YouTube
THE ‘APP’ THAT COULD HAVE HELPED TRACK MH370
As the investigation into the missing flight continues, Malaysia Airlines has also come under scrutiny for apparently skimping on a computer application upgrade that could have helped track the missing Boeing 777 and its 239 passengers
The Washington Post is reporting that an upgrade to a system called Swift — which wholesales for around $10 per flight — would have enabled MH370 to transmit data about its trajectory and position even after the plane’s transponder systems had been switched off.
A similar system enabled searchers to locate the Air France jet which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009. Wreckage from that plane was found within five days.
A satellite industry official, who did not wish to be named, told the newspaper that many airlines use the upgraded Swift system, which he likened to a mobile phone app.
Its use is mandatory on planes flying in the North Atlantic corridor between the Europe and the US but not on other plane routes, the source said.
Not giving up ... people in Kuala Lumpur holding on to hope. Pic: Joshua Paul. Source: AP
LOCKERBIE EXPERT SAYS CREW WERE TRYING TO SAVE PLANE
Theories as to what happened to the plane continue to be expounded and debunked.
Late last week Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak told the world’s media that the plane was purposely diverted from its course — leading to a flurry of hijacking theories — but a British aviation expert who was a key witness in the Pan Am Lockerbie bombing trial has now discredited those ideas.
The former head of the UK’S Federal Aviation Authority, Billie Vincent, told the Telegraph that he believed the plane suffered a “catastrophic event” over the Gulf of Thailand. The pilots would have been looking for a safe place to land as the cabin filled with smoke, he said.
“As opposed to being hijackers, the crew were heroically trying to save the aeroplane, save themselves and the passengers when this catastrophe hit,” he told the paper.
On the hunt ... a US Navy P-8 Poseidon aircraft in Perth. Pic: Instagram. Source: Instagram
Distraught ... a Chinese relative of passengers on the flight breaks down. Source: AP
PASSENGERS’ FAMILIES AT BREAKING POINT
Distraught relatives of MH370 passengers are at breaking point. Three heartbroken women came to the media centre in Kuala Lumpur carrying a protest banner demanding answers and were immediately dragged away by security in tears.
As the investigation continues to focus on the pilots, Minister of Defence and Acting Minister of Transport Hishammuddin Hussein said local and international experts have been recruited to examine the pilot’s flight simulator.
The three women who were dragged away by security are believed to be relatives of some of the Chinese passengers missing.
As Mr Hishammuddin’s press conference got underway the women, at least one who was in floods of tears, were whisked away to another part of the hotel, with a scrum of media desperately trying to follow them.
It has been nearly two weeks since the Boeing 777 carrying 239 passengers disappeared and the frustration at being left in the dark about its fate boiled over for the three women.
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