Fresh objects spotted by planes searching for a missing Malaysian
passenger jet in a new area of the southern Indian Ocean have again
raised hopes of unravelling the three-week-old mystery.
Australian
authorities coordinating the operation dramatically moved the air and
sea search 1,100 km north on Friday after new analysis of radar and
satellite data concluded Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 travelled faster
and for a shorter distance after vanishing from civilian radar screens
on March 8.
Australia said late on Friday that five international
aircraft had spotted "multiple objects of various colours" in the new
search area some 1,850 km west of Perth.
Flight Lieutenant Jamin Baker was on a New Zealand Air Force Orion
which spotted several items and dropped a marker buoy in "an area of
interest".
"Obviously we don't know if these (objects) are
associated with the aircraft yet but it certainly looks like we are
seeing a lot more debris and just general flotsam in the water, so we
could be on to something here," Baker said.
One Chinese navy ship
was in the area and would be trying to recover objects on Saturday,
while other ships were steaming to the area, the Australian Maritime
Safety Authority said.
Malaysia says the Boeing 777, which
vanished less than an hour into a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing,
was likely diverted deliberately but investigators have turned up no
apparent motive or other red flags among the 227 passengers or the 12
crew.
US officials close to the investigation said the FBI found
nothing illuminating in data it had received from computer equipment
used by MH370's pilots, including a home-made flight simulator.
The
search has involved more than two dozen countries and 60 aircraft and
ships but has been bedevilled by regional rivalries and an apparent
reluctance to share potentially crucial information due to security
concerns.
Malaysian officials said the new search area was the
result of a painstaking analysis of Malaysian military radar data and
satellite readings from British company Inmarsat carried out by US,
Chinese, British and Malaysian investigators.
Engine performance
analysis by the plane's manufacturer, Boeing, helped investigators
determine how long the plane could have flown before it ran out of fuel
and crashed into the ocean, they said.
"Information which had
already been examined by the investigation was re-examined in light of
new evidence drawn from the Inmarsat data analysis," Malaysia's acting
Transport Minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, told a news conference on
Friday.
For more than a week, ships and surveillance planes had
been scouring seas 2,500 km south-west of Perth, where satellite images
had shown possible debris from Flight MH370. That search zone has now
been abandoned.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB)
said the shift was based on analysis of radar data between the South
China Sea and the Strait of Malacca. At that time, the Boeing 777 was
making a radical diversion west from its course.
Malaysia's civil
aviation chief, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, said at Friday's news
conference he was "not at liberty" to give the exact path of the
aircraft.
Officials close to the investigation told Reuters last
week that the plane may have passed close to Port Blair, the capital of
India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands, 885 km further north-west from
where Malaysia has said its military radar last detected it.
At
around 319,000 sq km – roughly the size of Poland – the new search area
is larger, but closer to Perth, allowing aircraft to spend longer on
site. It is also favourable in terms of the weather as it is out of the
Roaring 40s, the the deep sea region known for its huge seas and
storm-force winds.
Searchers have perhaps a week to find debris,
calculate the likely crash area and find the aircraft's voice and data
"black boxes" before batteries showing their location run out.
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