More Debris Sighted. Is It MH370?

Missing flight MH370: Search intensifies for vanished jet after floating objects sighted in Indian Ocean

• Apr 27, 2014 18:28
• By Sam Adams

Eight military aircraft and 11 ships are scouring remote waters west of Perth in Australia after suspected debris spotted

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Searching for missing Flight MH370 17th April

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2:30 pm

Although the underwater drone search has continued today, bad weather has stopped the air and sea surface search from going ahead.

Six weeks after the search moved from Asia to the Indian Ocean, authorities are now regrouping to decide how to proceed.

The Joint Agency Coordination Centre in charge said: "We are currently consulting very closely with our international partners on the best way to continue the search into the future."

12:58 pm

Malaysia's former prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, had raised questions about the role of plane manufacturer Boeing in the disappearance of Flight MH370, and cast doubt on whether it crashed into the Indian Ocean.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Dr Mahathir asked why no oil slicks or debris have yet been found from the plane, and added: "The loss of the plane is due to the makers, Boeing. How can Boering produce a plane that is so easily disabled?"

Boeing, which has co-operated fully with Malaysia Airlines' investigation into MH370's disappearance and sent experts to work with the investigation team, has not responded to the comments.

The cause of MH370's disappearance is still not known.

11:47 am

This is the Malaysian transport minister Hishamuddin Hussein greeting Barack Obama in Kuala Lumpur today, ahead of their talks about MH370.

10:50 am

America president Barack Obama said this morning the US was fully committed to providing more assets to help in the search for MH370.

At a press conference during a visit to the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur he said: "I can tell you the United States is absolutely committed to providing whatever resources and assets that we can."

A US Navy underwater drone continued scanning a remote patch of the India Ocean today, but it's search has so far produced no clues.

5:49 am

President Obama has reasserted America's commitment to the search for Flight MH370 - as he begins his state visit to Malaysia.

4:40 am

Despite admitting an aircraft was detected, the Malaysian authorities say they do not know for certain whether or not it was the missing Malaysia Airways jet.

4:40 am

The Malaysia Government admitted yesterday that it's military radar had tracked an unidentified aircraft in the country's airspace at the time Flight MH370 lost contact with ground control.

3:52 am

The search operation has been given a boost by the sighting of objects floating in the Indian Ocean.

Could this be the first solid piece of evidence about the fate of Flight MH370?

3:22 pm

Barack Obama has offered his support to the efforts to find MH370, according to the office of Malaysia's transport minister.

Ahead of his visit to the country later this week, the US president spoke to Hishammuddin Hussein.

Mr Hussein said: "Obama knows it's a tough, long road ahead. We'll work together, there is always support."

2:17 pm

As well as the deep sea drone, the air and sea search continued today with up to eight military aircraft and 11 ships.

Meanwhile, Malaysia's transport minister has been meeting with those involved in the search to talk about the next phase of the operation.

1:09 pm

If nothing is found during this mission, the Bluefin's search area is likely to be extended.

"If no contacts of interest are made, Bluefin-21 will continue to examine the areas adjacent to the 10km radius," Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) in charge of the search said in a statement.

12:10 pm

We have now entered the 50th day of the search for MH370.

The submarine drone Bluefin 21 has completed around 95% of its mission to scour at 10 sqaure jm area of the Indian Ocean seabed, but had to abort the search on Friday and resurface because of software malfunction.

Technicians fixed the drone overnight and its 14th, 16 hour trip to the sea floor at depths of more than 4.5 km (2.8 miles) was underway today.

6:21 am

But the U.S. official said Malaysia would have to decide how to proceed with the search, including whether to bring in more underwater drones, even with the understanding that the search could continue for years without a refined search area.

5:57 am

Authorities had identified the area as their strongest lead in determining the plane's final resting place after detecting what they suspected was a signal, or "ping", from the plane's black box recorder on April 4.

5:09 am

He said the search for the jetliner, which vanished on March 8 with 239 people on board, would now enter a much harder phase of scouring broader areas of the ocean near where the plane is believed to have crashed.

5:09 am

He said the search for the jetliner, which vanished on March 8 with 239 people on board, would now enter a much harder phase of scouring broader areas of the ocean near where the plane is believed to have crashed.

4:25 am

A senior US official, speaking under condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on the search effort, said two weeks of scouring the Indian Ocean floor with a U.S. Navy submersible drone had turned up no wreckage.

4:01 am

The underwater search has so far focused on an area of sea bed within a 10km radius of where a 'ping' from an aircraft flight recorder was heard.

3:58 am

The Bluefin underwater probe has covered 95% of its initial search area in the Indian Ocean.

So far it has found no trace of missing flight MH370.

It has completed 14 missions so far.

Will it be sent out again?

3:58 am

After a US official was quoted as saying the search could take years - how much longer will the international effort continue?

Whatever happens, the torture for loved ones hoping for news of those aboard the missing jet will go on.

5:26 pm

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said he did not believe it when he first heard about the critical satellite data on which the current search in the Indian Ocean is based on.

“To be honest, I found it hard to believe. It’s a bizarre scenario which none of us could have contemplated so that’s why when I met the team of foremost experts in aviation industry I asked them again and again ‘are you sure?’

“Their answer to me was ‘we are as sure as we can possibly be.’"

3:47 pm

RECAP

Here's a round-up of the events of day 48 of the hunt for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

• Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak pledged to release the preliminary report into the missing plane next week "in the name of transparency"
• He also revealed military radar tracked an unidentified plane shortly after MH370's disappearance
• Angry Chinese relatives of the passengers have staged a sit-in outside the Malaysian Embassy in Beijing, demanding they be given more information by the Malaysian government
• Malaysia airlines say 10 of their staff were detained and assaulted by angry family members in a Beijing hotel, yesterday.
• Australian authorities say the underwater drone searching for wreckage on the sea bed has scoured 95% of its 120-square-mile planned search area. They say they will move on to surrounding areas when the initial search is complete.
• Royal Navy submarine HMS Tireless has been stood down in its search for the missing plane.
• This morning there was a hijack scare in Indonesia, when a drunk passenger tried to get into the cockpit of a Virgin Australia flight to Bali.
• A senior US defence official said today the search for MH370 could drag on for 'years.'

Reuters

A relative of a passenger onboard Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 cries as she talks on her mobile phone

Riveted Metal Found On Australian Shore Not From Flight MH370. Where Is The Plane?

MH370 search: Object found on Australian coast wasn't from missing plane

By David Molko, Ed Payne and Mariano Castillo, CNN

updated 11:57 AM EDT, Thu April 24, 2014

Your video will play in 23 secs

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: The Bluefin-21 begins 12th mission after scanning more than 90% of search area
• Analysis of photos shows an object found near Augusta isn't a lead in the search
• Passenger's family member asks: Are they searching in the right place?
• Analyst: Search area is "the place they had to look"

Augusta, Australia (CNN) -- A metal object that washed ashore on Australia's coast wasn't from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, officials said.

Detailed pictures of the object were enough to convince investigators that it wasn't a lead in the search for the missing plane, the Australian agency leading the search for the aircraft said on Thursday.

Officials had previously called the piece of metal, which appeared to have rivets on one side, an "object of interest" in the search.

Police picked it up near Augusta, Australia, roughly 1,000 miles away from the suspected crash site, after many futile days of searching for the missing plane.

Authorities haven't said what they think the object could be.

'Object of interest' found in Australia

Bajc: There's no evidence MH370 crashed

MH370: What's next in the search?

Possible promising leads have turned out to be false alarms for weeks in the lengthy search for the missing plane, which disappeared mid-flight on March 8 with 239 people aboard. One major challenge that's complicated the search: the ocean is full of garbage. Other objects search teams have spotted in the Indian Ocean turned out to be trash, jellyfish and fishing gear.

Bad weather grounded planes searching for signs of debris on Wednesday. And a high-tech underwater drone found no sign of the Boeing 777 jetliner.

If nothing turns up in the Bluefin-21's underwater search,the investigation will move into a new phase that could involve new equipment and an expanded search area.

And as the search came up empty again, a key question loomed: Are they looking in the right place?

"They have been searching for more than a month. All of the ships, the planes, the satellites they're using, not even a small piece of the plane was found," Steve Wang, whose mother was aboard the aircraft, told CNN's "The Lead with Jake Tapper" on Thursday.

Abbott: 'We may rethink the search, but we will not rest'

Up to 11 military aircraft and 11 ships are set to search for the plane on Thursday.

And there's still ground left to cover.

The Bluefin-21 has scanned more than 90% of the underwater search area set out by investigators and began its 12th mission on Thursday.

"We will continue with the search operation until we fully cover the search area," Hishammuddin Hussein, Malaysia's acting transport minister, said Wednesday.

Despite the search efforts for MH370 repeatedly coming up empty during the 48 days since it started, there's no suggestion the hunt in the southern Indian Ocean is anywhere close to ending.

Quite to the contrary, according to Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, whose country is heading up the search for the missing aircraft.

"We are not going to abandon ... the families of the 239 people who were on that plane by lightly surrendering while there is reasonable hope of finding something," he said Wednesday. "We may well rethink the search, but we will not rest until we have done everything we can to solve this mystery."

What comes next?

Malaysian and Australian authorities are already mapping out a long-term strategy for the search, which could go on for months or years, if the two-year search for Air France Flight 447 is any guide.

Guidelines drafted by Malaysia raise the possibility of a significantly wider search area should the current underwater search fail to turn up evidence of the plane. The document discusses how best to deploy resources, including new underwater search assets.

If the underwater search comes up empty, it could ground the air search as well, CNN aviation analyst Miles O'Brien said.

"If it doesn't pan out, then all the equations that have been put in the mix to determine where debris might be ... all of that is for naught," he said.

The next logical step after the underwater search is to "rethink all of the information we have at hand," ocean search specialist Rob McCallum told CNN.

An expanded search area might include the last 370 miles of the plane's flight path, perhaps 15 miles on either side, he said.

He also said it would make sense to turn to deep-towed sonar, which provides less resolution than the Bluefin-21 but about 10 times the range.

If the search changes tacks, that doesn't mean investigators did the wrong thing by looking where they did for the plane, said CNN analyst David Gallo, who co-led the search for Air France Flight 447.

Satellite and fuel consumption data, and possible pings from the plane's flight data recorders led searchers to the part of the Indian Ocean they're combing now, he said.

"It's the place they had to look. ... Everything pointed to this area," he said.

Going forward, he said, investigators may double or triple the size of the search area while using sonar to map the ocean floor "so you see where every pebble is."

"I just don't know how you leave this place before you take that area of the seafloor apart completely," he said.

What happens if data recorders are found?

Investigators would love to find the flight data recorders from Flight 370, a potential treasure trove of information into what happened to the jetliner and the 239 passengers and crew on board.

If found, the "black boxes" probably would go to the Australian Transport Safety Board's accident investigation lab.

But the investigation is officially Malaysian, so that country's officials would decide where the boxes would go.

Australia is just one of a handful of countries that have the capability and technical know-how to decipher what's inside a black box.

The investigation into Flight 370's disappearance is Malaysia's responsibility. Australia is leading the search for the missing aircraft and participating in the investigation as an accredited representative.

The Malaysian Cabinet approved the appointment of an international investigation team to look into the disappearance of Flight 370, Hishammuddin said.

The names of the members will be announced next week, he added. He also said the team will not be looking at the criminal aspects of the investigation, which remain under the Royal Malaysian Police.

"The main purpose is to evaluate and determine the cause of the accident," Hishammuddin said.

Malaysia has completed a preliminary report on the incident, as required by the International Civil Aviation Organization, but has not released it publicly, he said.

Inside a black box investigation lab

The latest in the search

Australia: What's next

Sad, angry relatives in agonizing limbo

CNN's David Molko reported from Augusta, Australia. CNN's Ed Payne and Mariano Castillo reported from Atlanta. CNN's Miguel Marquez, Michael Holmes and Catherine E. Shoichet contributed to this report.