Govt unmoved by MH370 claims
AUSTRALIA: Two new reports by authorities investigating the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have narrowed down to precise co-ordinates what could be the crash site of the missing plane.
Despite investigators saying the data was ‘‘useful’’ and ‘‘worth pursuing’’, the Australian government has batted away suggestions of reopening the abandoned search.
The Boeing 777 disappeared in the early hours of March 8, 2014 while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. It is known to have diverted from its flight path over the South China Sea before ending up on an arc towards the southern Indian Ocean, but mystery surrounds the events on board, including possible sabotage.
The new analysis, released by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), looked at a number of objects seen floating in the Indian Ocean in the weeks following the plane’s disappearance, and traced their likely origin.
Geoscience Australia examined four satellite images, sourced from French authorities, containing 70 objects floating in the water on March 23, 2014 - two weeks after the aircraft vanished. It declared 12 of the objects to be ‘‘probably man-made’’, though it could not determine if they were aircraft debris.
The CSIRO then performed a drift analysis and concluded that the objects most likely originated from a zone in the southeastern quadrant of an area just to the north of the previous search zone, which experts now consider the plane’s most likely location. The precise coordinates within the zone are consistent with evidence from earlier investigations.
CSIRO oceanographer David Griffin, who authored the drift analysis, said the findings pinpointed an area more precise than any previous efforts. ‘‘We’re talking about much smaller regions than we’ve ever been talking about before.
‘‘We don’t know definitely if these items are actually parts of the plane. But they are right where we expected there to be pieces of plane, based on all our other evidence,’’ he said.
‘‘It might be a false lead, but it’s worth pursuing if you want to continue the search.’’
However, Transport Minister Darren Chester indicated that there were no plans to reopen the search for the missing jet, which was suspended in January after failing to find the plane in the 120,000-square-kilometre area originally favoured by experts.
‘‘I welcome the CSIRO and Geoscience reports, but it is important to note that it does not provide new evidence leading to a specific location of MH370,’’ Chester said.
‘‘Malaysia is the lead investigator, and any future requests in relation to searching for MH370 would be considered by Australia, at that time.’’
Chester has previously said the search, which cost Australian taxpayers more than A$160 million, would not be reopened unless compelling new evidence came to light.
ATSB chief commissioner Greg Hood said the new analysis should be treated with caution but could still be useful in defining a renewed search area.
’’Clearly, we must be cautious. These objects have not been definitely identified as MH370 debris,’’ he said.
In December, just before the search was suspended, experts proposed searching a 25,000sq km area immediately to the north of the exhausted search zone. That was ultimately rejected by Australia, Malaysia and China, angering families of the 239 victims.
However, the search area pinpointed by the CSIRO in its new report was less than a quarter of the size of that 25,000sq km area, Griffin said.
Charitha Pattiaratchi, oceanographer at the University of Western Australia, also warned that the new reports were not conclusive, and represented a piece of the puzzle rather than the whole solution.
A United States seabed exploration company, Ocean Infinity, has offered to assume the financial risk for a renewed search effort, and has appealed to the Malaysian government to accept its offer.
- Fairfax