A Chinese aircrew has spotted “suspicious objects” in the southern Indian Ocean in the search for vanished Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, the official Xinhua news agency is reporting.
Searchers discovered “two relatively big floating objects with many white smaller ones scattered within a radius of several kilometres”, Xinhua said, citing a reporter on board a Chinese Ilyushin-76 plane.
The larger objects were “white and square”, it added.
“The crew has reported the coordinates to the Australian command centre as well as Chinese icebreaker Xuelong, which is en route to the sea area,” Xinhua said.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) says it has been advised about the reported objects sighted by a Chinese aircraft.
In a statement, it said the reported objects are within today’s search area and attempts will be made to locate them.
The Xuelong has now changed course towards the latest sighting, Xinhua said in a subsequent report.
Earlier Xinhua reports said a Chinese military plane set off this morning from Perth to seek “suspicious debris” captured by satellite imagery in the remote waters.
According to Xinhua, two Chinese planes that had been searching the area were returning to Perth, and the crew had asked Australia to send more aircraft to the area.
Search for missing objects shifts north
Flight MH370 went missing on March 8 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people aboard, including six Australians.
The hunt for debris from plane off the coast of WA shifted north today, as Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said Australia was “clutching at whatever little piece of information comes along” in the search for the missing plane.
The shift to an area some 850 kilometres north of the weekend’s search zone came after French satellites spotted “floating debris” in the ocean.
Speaking to Radio National this morning, Mr Truss said the overall search area had now been extended to cover 68,000 square kilometres.
“Certainly the areas where debris has been picked up by satellites is of particular interest, and they’re the focus of a lot of the searching,” Mr Truss said.
“The French sighting is a piece of new material because that is in a completely different location. That is about 850 kilometres north of our current search area.
“So we need to check that out as well.”
Malaysia’s transport ministry said the French images showed “floating debris” and said they had been sent to Australian authorities coordinating the search.
But Malaysia gave no details of the number, size or precise location of the objects.
Mr Truss said the debris in the French images was not in an area authorities had identified as the most likely place where the aircraft may have entered the sea.
“We still don’t know for certain that the aircraft is even in this area,” he said.
“We are just clutching at whatever little piece of information comes along to try and find a place where we might be able to concentrate the efforts.”
He also said Tropical Cyclone Gillian, near Christmas Island, could bring bad weather south, hindering search efforts.
“It is a very difficult task. The weather yesterday wasn’t too bad, although there was early morning fog,” he said.
“Today we expect the weather to deteriorate and of course the forecasts ahead are not all that good.
“So it’s going to be a challenge but we’ll stick at it.”
The pilot of one of the Royal Australia Air Force Orions involved in the search said conditions had been challenging.
source: abc.net.au
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