Australia has sent four aircraft and a navy ship to scour an area in the southern Indian Ocean to determine whether two large floating objects spotted by satellite are pieces of wreckage from a Malaysian jet missing for nearly two weeks. No wreckage from Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has been found since it disappeared on March 8, sparking one of the largest search efforts in aviation history and raising a series of questions as to what happened to the plane carrying 239 people. INTERACTIVE: The search for Malaysia Airlines MH370 Emotional messages of hope for Flight MH370 passengers Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: How airlines can lose a plane INTERACTIVE: Planes that have vanished without a trace It is credible enough to divert the research to this area on the basis it provides a promising lead to what might be wreckage from the debris field, said Air Commodore John McGarry of Australias department of defence at a press conference. Satellite imagery analyzed by experts discovered two objects of a reasonable size bobbing up and down in the southern Indian Ocean, John Young, Australias Maritime Safety Authoritys (AMSA) emergency response general manager, said at the conference. The objects were spotted about 2,500 kilometres southwest of Perth. The largest object appears to be about 24 metres, he said — with the second object being smaller at about five metres. A number of smaller images appear to be scattered around the large object, he said. This is a lead. It is probably the best lead we have right now. But we need to get there, find them, see them, assess them to know whether it’s really meaningful or not, he said, but warned that the objects may turn out to be a false lead. A Royal Australian Air Force Orion aircraft arrived in the area about 1:50 p.m. local time. Poor visibility in the area has been reported. CBC meteorologist Johanna Wagstaffe says that may be the case for the next several hours. This could hamper the search efforts with only a limited number of daylight hours remaining before the night. Another three aircraft have been dispatched and are expected to arrive later Thursday. Two ships are also on their way to the search area. A merchant ship, which responded to a rescue co-ordination centre call, is expected to arrive around 6 p.m., while a Royal Australian Navy ship, which is well-equipped for recovering objects, is still days away from the area. Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: whats needed to find it Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: How to make a crisis worse Malaysia Airlines affair raises security concerns over passport trafficking The most likely scenario is that an aircraft will find an object, if it is findable, and then report back an accurate GPS position, Young said. And AMSA would task the ship to proceed to the area and attempt to see it. That would be our first chance to get a close up look of whatever the objects might be and progressively advance the identification of whether they’re associated with the search or not. The families of the passengers and crew on board the missing flight appear to be holding out hope that this will either fail to be wreckage or survivors will be found, said CBCs Andrew Lee from a hotel in Beijing where many of the families are staying. Selamat Omar, father of flight engineer Mohd Khairul Amri Selamat who was on board missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, is staying at a hotel with relatives of the passengers of the missing plane. (Samsul Said/Reuters) Lee said he spoke to one man, who was aware of the satellite imagery, who said he believes his son is still alive and wont believe otherwise unless he sees a body. The father said families have had to cope with a great deal of misinformation, making it difficult to believe this new development. Lee said families in the hotel are on razor-thin edge to begin with and emotions ran high after they were briefed on the possible findings. People rushed out of the briefing room, many with their heads down and tears on their faces, he said. Finding floating wreckage is possible David Gallo, the U.S. project leader in the search for a missing Air France flight in 2009, said based on the descriptions provided by officials of two larger objects surrounded by multiple smaller objects, the discovery is sounding increasingly like a debris field. While debris would typically scatter, he said ocean experts who study wind and waves have told him there is a pocket in the search area that has been fairly calm over the past few days, making it possible for the debris to have stuck closer together. On mobile? Watch the Australian Maritime Safety Authoritys press conference here. Based on the size described, Gallo predicts it could turn out to be a piece of the planes wing or fuselage, which is the main body of an aircraft. It sounds like the plane was landed fairly gently, said Gallo, assuming the objects are identified as wreckage from flight MH370. It wasn’t nose-dived into the surface of the ocean, if it is in fact the plane. In the search for Air France Flight 447, the tail fin was near the first thing found, he said, about five days after it crashed. Over the next week or two, crews recovered more pieces and some human remains. Gallo said the ocean is mysterious and its hard to predict when survivors will be found. We wont know that until we know. Earlier Thursday, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott made the announcement of the discovery in parliament, calling it new and credible information. Abbott said he had already spoken with his Malaysian counterpart Najib Razak and cautioned that the objects had yet to be identified. This is a lead. It is probably the best lead we have right now.- John Young, Australias Maritime Safety Authoritys emergency response general manager The task of locating these objects will be extremely difficult and it may turn out they are not related to the search for MH370, Abbott said. Other experts told CBC News the objects may end up being containers that fell from cargo ships, which happens frequently in the identified search area. Gordon Dupon, a former Transportation Safety Board investigator, told CBC News hes not surprised to hear these developments. Dupon said he always suspected investigators would find the plane. Its possible that they may find even the vertical fin floating, and that stuff will float because its full of air, he said, recalling a the Air France flight. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) is concentrating its search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 on this area. (Australian Maritime Safety Authority/The Associated Press) Roger Maynard, a freelance reporter in Sydney, told CBC News that this is an important development and the prime ministers announcement is significant. Certainly, given that the prime minister has announced this to parliament in the past hour, then it seems that there might be a certain degree of credibility to it, he said. Key developments in Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 search Explore the massive search effort for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 How could Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 fall off the radar? Investigators believe that someone with detailed knowledge of both the Boeing 777-200ER and commercial aviation navigation switched off the planes communications systems before diverting it thousands of miles off its scheduled course from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. A relative of Chinese passengers aboard the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 walks out of a news briefing organized by the airlines officials in Beijing on Thursday. Flight 370 disappeared March 8 on a night flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. (Andy Wong/The Associated Press) Exhaustive background checks of the passengers and crew aboard have not yielded anything that might explain why. The FBI is helping Malaysian authorities analyze data from a flight simulator belonging to the captain of the missing plane, after initial examination showed some data logs had been deleted early last month. An unprecedented multinational search for the plane has focused on two vast search corridors: one arcing north overland from Laos towards the Caspian Sea, the other curving south across the Indian Ocean from west of Indonesias Sumatra island to west of Australia. Australia is leading the search in the southern part of the southern corridor, with assistance from the U.S. Navy. (Reuters/CBC) With files from Reuters, the Associated Press Related Map: Malaysia Flight MH370 route, search area Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: How airlines can lose a plane Key developments in Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 search How could Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 go off the radar? Malaysia Airlines flight MH370: Whats needed to find it HomeNewsWorldStory Privacy Terms of Use Contact Mobile Services Help Copyright © CBC 2014web
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 08:49:43 +0000
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