Aussie agency claims it can locate MH370

> But Canberra rejects ‘unprecedented precision’ findings of plane crash area

SYDNEY/KUALA LUMPUR: Australia’s main scientific agency yesterday said it believed with “unprecedented precision and certainty” that MH370 crashed into the sea northeast of an area scoured in a fruitless two-year search.

The agency’s assertion is based on satellite pictures taken two weeks after flight MH370 went missing on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board, flying to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur.

But the Australian government rejected the conclusion of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), issued in a report yesterday, saying it was not specific enough.

The disappearance of the Boeing 777 has become one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries. It is thought to have been diverted thousands of miles off course out over the southern Indian Ocean before crashing off the coast of Western Australia.

Australia, Malaysia and China called off a A$200 million (RM687 million) search for the plane in January after finding nothing, despite the protests of families of those onboard.

CSIRO previously raised doubts on the main 120,000sq km underwater search zone, saying it believed the plane went down to the north of it.

Its latest assertion was its most insistent yet and was based on a review of satellite images provided by the French military intelligence service and France’s national space agency, CNES, which showed 70 pieces of debris with a dozen of those “probably” man-made.

“We think it is possible to identify a mostlikely location of the aircraft, with unprecedented precision and certainty,” it said.

CSIRO oceanographer and the report’s lead author, David Griffin, said if the debris spotted in the pictures was authentic, then it supported previous ocean-drift analysis pointing to a crash zone just to the north of the area that was most thoroughly searched.

“It all fits together so perfectly, the only thing missing is proof that those actually are pieces of plane,” Griffin said.

Australia has not ruled out resuming the search for the airliner but has said that would depend on finding credible evidence about the plane’s whereabouts. – Reuters