Efforts to try to identify debris from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in the southern Indian Ocean are unlikely to start again for at least another 24 hours, Australian officials said Tuesday. Gale-force winds, large waves, heavy rain and low clouds forecast for the area would make a search dangerous, they said. And the task ahead of the multinational team is formidable: tens of thousands of square miles in one of the remotest places on Earth. Were not searching for a needle in a haystack, Mark Binskin, vice chief of the Australian Defence Force, told reporters. Were still trying to find where the haystack is. In Beijing, hundreds of friends and family members of missing passengers marched to the Malaysian Embassy to express their anger and frustration. They claimed they werent being told the truth by the Malaysian government about what happened to the plane. Im so mad, one upset family member told reporters. He said he felt there was no evidence that the passenger jet crashed in the Indian Ocean. If you find something: OK, we accept, he said. But nothing -- just from the data, just from analysis. Hundreds of police officers prevented the marchers from reaching the embassy building. One woman among the crowd, overcome by stress and emotion, was carried to a nearby ambulance on a stretcher. We all feel enormous sorrow and pain, Malaysia Airlines Chief Executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya told reporters Tuesday. Sorrow that all those who boarded Flight MH370 on Saturday 8th March, will not see their families again. And that those families will now have to live on without those they love. Asked whether he would resign once his part in the investigation has concluded, Ahmad Jauhari said it was a personal decision that he would take later. Malaysia Airlines said Tuesday it has offered family members financial support of $5,000 for each passenger aboard the ill-fated flight and was preparing to make additional payments as the prolonged search continues. Little consolation But that was little consolation for anguished relatives. They were still reeling from the devastating news the day before, when a grim-faced Malaysian Prime Minister confirmed their worst fears, announcing Flight 370 went down somewhere in the Indian Ocean . Then, even as investigators seemed closer than ever to finding traces of the plane, stormy weather forced Australian authorities to call off a day of searching for the Boeing 777. Its almost felt like a miniature roller coaster within the day, said James Wood, whose brother Philip was one of three American passengers on the plane. Families are stuck in a holding pattern, he told CNNs AC360. Were just waiting and waiting, he said, and not getting any answers one way or another. The announcement of the planes fate by authorities has left many key questions unanswered, including what went wrong aboard the Beijing-bound airliner and where its wreckage is located in the deep, wild ocean waters. Bad weather blocks search When search crews resume their work -- most likely on Wednesday -- theyll be combing the remote area in the southern Indian Ocean where officials now say they believe the flight ended. With eight hours of flying to and from the search region, the fleet of P-3 Orion aircraft and other military aircraft have only a precious few hours to scour the search tracks they have been given, Australian Defense Minister David Johnston said. More than half a million square kilometers (193,000 square miles) have been searched to date, Australian authorities said. CNNs Kate Bolduan asked Johnston why he was confident that the plane crashed in the ocean. I am confident of that because thats the best weve got at this point in time, he replied. New analysis of satellite data by a British satellite company and accident investigators led to that conclusion, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said Monday. They have told us all lives are lost, a missing passengers relative briefed by the airline in Beijing said. Malaysia Airlines also sent a text message to relatives saying we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those onboard survived. Reacting to the criticism the airline has come under for informing people by text, CEO Ahmad Jauhari said Tuesday, Our sole and only motivation last night was to ensure that in the incredibly short amount of time available to us, the families heard the tragic news before the world did. Prime Minister Najib explained Tuesday that he decided to make his official announcement Monday because he did not want the government to be seen as hiding information on purpose from the families of missing passengers. In an address to Parliament in Kuala Lumpur, he said his statement was based on the most conclusive information we have.
Posted on: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 08:02:14 +0000
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