Search aircraft are investigating two objects floating in
the southern Indian Ocean off Australia that could be debris from a Malaysian
jetliner missing for 12 days with 239 people on board, officials said on
Thursday.
Australian officials said the objects were spotted by
satellite in one of the remotest parts of the globe, around 2,500 km southwest
of Perth in the vast oceans between Australia, southern Africa and Antarctica.
The larger of the objects measured up to 24 metres, and
appeared to be awash over water several thousand metres deep, they said.
"It's 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," Royal Australian Air Force Air Commodore John McGarry
told a news conference in Canberra.
No confirmed wreckage from Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370
has been found since it vanished from air traffic control screens off
Malaysia's east coast early on March 8, less than an hour after taking off from
Kuala Lumpur for Beijing.
"I can confirm we have a new lead," Malaysian
Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told reporters in Kuala Lumpur, where
the investigation into the missing airliner is based.
Another official in Malaysia said investigators were
"hopeful but cautious" about the Australian discovery.
Investigators believe that someone with detailed knowledge
of both the Boeing 777-200ER and commercial aviation navigation switched off
the plane's communications systems before diverting it thousands of miles off
its scheduled course.
Exhaustive background checks of the passengers and crew
aboard have not yielded anything that might explain why.
The huge potential breakthrough in an investigation that had
appeared to be running out of leads was revealed by Australian Prime Minister
Tony Abbott, who told parliament the objects had been located with satellite
imagery.
"New and credible information has come to light in
relation to the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in the southern
Indian Ocean," Abbott said.
He added that he had already spoken with his Malaysian
counterpart, Najib Razak, and cautioned that the objects had yet to be identified.
"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.
John Young, general manager of the emergency response
division of Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA), told reporters at the
Canberra news conference that an Australian air force AP-3C Orion plane was
already at the scene, and more aircraft were on the way.
A merchant ship diverted for the task was due to arrive in a
few hours, he said. A Royal Australian Navy ship equipped to recover any
objects was also en route, but was still "some days away".
"They are objects of a reasonable size and probably
awash with water moving up and down over the surface," Young said.
He said it could be some days before authorities have
anything to report and added that poor visibility reported in the area could
hamper the search.
"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.
The dimensions given are consistent with at least one of the
objects possibly being the major part of a 777-200ER wing, which is around 27
metres long, though Australian officials cautioned the first images were
indistinct.
The relatively large size of the objects would also suggest
that, if they do come from the missing aircraft, it was intact when it went
into the water.
Investigators piecing together patchy data from military
radar and satellites believe that, minutes after its identifying transponder
was switched off as it crossed the Gulf of Thailand, the plane turned sharply
west, re-crossing the Malay Peninsula and following an established commercial
route towards India.
What happened next is unclear, but ephemeral pings picked up
by one commercial satellite suggest the aircraft flew on for at least six
hours. That would be consistent with the plane ending up in the southern Indian
Ocean.
The methodical shutdown of the communications systems,
together with the fact that the plane appeared to be following a planned course
after turning back, has focused particular attention on the pilot and co-pilot.
The FBI is helping Malaysian authorities analyse 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.
A Malaysian official with knowledge of the investigations into
the pilots said three simulator games that 53-year-old pilot, Zaharie Ahmad
Shah, had played were being looked at.
"We are following up on the data logs being
erased," the source said. "These could be logs of the games that were
erased to free up memory, so it may not lead us to anything. He played a lot of
games, going into hundreds and thousands of hours.
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 Indonesia's 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.
The depth of the water where the possible debris has been
sighted would likely make recovering the "black box" voice and data
recorders that may finally unlock the mystery of what happened aboard Flight
MH370 extremely challenging.
University of Western Australia Professor of Oceanography
Charitha Pattiaratchi said that, based on currents in the area, if the debris
is from the plane it probably would have gone into the water around 300-400 km
to the west.
The search area covered an ocean ridge known as Naturalist
Plateau, a large sea shelf about 3,500 metres deep, Pattiaratchi said. The
plateau is about 250 km wide by 400 km long, and the area around it is close to
5,000 metres deep.
"Whichever way you go, it's deep," he said.
REUTERS
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