Malaysian airliners flight ended over Indian Ocean, PM says By Michael Pearson and Jethro Mullen, CNN March 24, 2014 -- Updated 1415 GMT (2215 HKT) Watch this video Flight ended in southern Indian Ocean STORY HIGHLIGHTS NEW: They have told us all lives are lost, relative of missing passenger tells CNN Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 went down over the southern Indian Ocean An Australian aircraft spots two objects: one circular, the other rectangular Earlier, a Chinese plane saw two relatively big floating objects, Xinhua reports (CNN) -- Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 went down over the southern Indian Ocean, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said Monday, citing a new analysis of satellite data by a British satellite company and accident investigators. The announcement appeared to rule out the possibility that anyone could have survived whatever happened to the aircraft, which vanished more than two weeks ago with 239 people aboard. As Razak spoke, airline representatives met with family members in Beijing. They have told us all lives are lost, one relative of a missing passenger told CNN. The developments happened the same day as Australian officials announced they had spotted two objects in the southern Indian Ocean that could be related to the flight, which has been missing since March 8 with 239 people aboard. One object is a grey or green circular object, and the other is an orange rectangular object, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said. Are found objects part of MH370? A look inside the search for MH370 Source: Flight 370 turned, dropped Two objects located in ocean The objects are the latest in a series of sightings, including suspicious objects reported earlier Monday by a Chinese military plane that was involved in search efforts in the same region, authorities said. So far, nothing has been definitively linked to Flight 370. Earlier, Hishammuddin Hussein, Malaysias acting transportation minister, said only that at the moment, there are new leads but nothing conclusive. A reporter on board the Chinese plane for Chinas official Xinhua news agency said the search team saw two relatively big floating objects with many white smaller ones scattered within a radius of several kilometers, the agency reported Monday. The Chinese plane was flying at 33,000 feet on its way back to Australias west coast when it made the sighting, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said. But a U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon aircraft, one of the militarys most sophisticated reconnaissance planes, that was tasked to investigate the objects was unable to find them, the authority said. With the search in its third week, authorities have so far been unable to establish where exactly the missing plane is or why it flew off course from its planned journey from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. China has a particularly large stake in the search: Its citizens made up about two-thirds of the 227 passengers on the missing Boeing 777. Beijing has repeatedly called on Malaysian authorities, who are in charge of the overall search, to step up efforts to find the plane. Malaysian and Australian authorities appeared to be more interested Monday in the two objects spotted by a Royal Australian Air Force P-3 Orion aircraft. The Australians navys HMAS Success is on scene and is attempting to locate the objects, the Australian maritime authority said. Hishammuddin said Australian authorities had said the objects could be retrieved within the next few hours, or by tomorrow morning at the latest. Get up to speed Satellites focus search Recent information from satellites identifying objects in the water that could be related to the plane has focused search efforts on an area roughly 1,500 miles southwest of the Australian city of Perth. A total of 10 aircraft -- from Australia, China the United States and Japan -- were tasked with combing the search area Monday. The aerial searches have been trained on the isolated part of ocean since last week, when Australia first announced that satellite imagery had detected possible objects that could be connected to the search. Since then, China and France have said they also have satellite information pointing to floating debris in a similar area. The Chinese information came from images, and the French data came from satellite radar. But Australian officials have repeatedly warned that the objects detected in satellite images may not turn out to be from the missing plane -- they could be containers that have fallen off cargo ships, for example. On Saturday, searchers found a wooden pallet as well as strapping belts, Australian authorities said. The use of wooden pallets is common in the airline industry, but also in the shipping industry. Hishammuddin said Monday that Flight 370 was carrying wooden pallets, but that there was so far no evidence they are related to the ones sighted in the search area. The investigation into the passenger jets disappearance has already produced a wealth of false leads and speculative theories. Previously, when the hunt was focused on the South China Sea near where the plane dropped off civilian radar, a number of sightings of debris proved to be unrelated to the search. How theyre searching for debris Plane said to have flown low The sighting of the objects of interest by the Chinese plane came after a weekend during which other nuggets of information emerged about the movements of the errant jetliner on the night it vanished. Military radar tracking shows that after making a sharp turn over the South China Sea, the plane changed altitude as it headed toward the Strait of Malacca, an official close to the investigation into the missing flight told CNN. The plane flew as low as 12,000 feet at some point before it disappeared from radar, according to the official. It had reportedly been flying at a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet when contact was lost with air traffic control. The sharp turn seemed to be intentional, the official said, because executing it would have taken the Boeing 777 two minutes -- a time period during which the pilot or co-pilot could have sent an emergency signal if there had been a fire or other emergency on board. Authorities say the plane didnt send any emergency signals, though some analysts say its still unclear whether the pilots tried but werent able to communicate because of a catastrophic failure of the aircrafts systems. The official, who is not authorized to speak to the media, told CNN that the area the plane flew in after the turn is a heavily trafficked air corridor and that flying at 12,000 feet would have kept the jet well out of the way of that traffic.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 14:22:01 +0000