Chinese military jets join search
U.S. sending black box locator to Indian Ocean
New images bring new hope of finding missing Malaysian jetliner.
Search airplanes flew out of Perth, Australia, early today to resume the hunt for any sign of the missing Malaysia Airlines jet in an expanded area of the south Indian Ocean.
Rain and poor weather conditions were likely to again slow the search in the area where French satellite data detected potential debris, about 1,500 miles southwest of Perth.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said the search area was expanded from 22,800 to 26,400 square miles, including a new separate area based on information from France.
Two Chinese Ilyushin IL-76 planes joined the search, increasing the number of aircraft from eight on Sunday to 10. Australian Transport Minister Warren Truss said “nothing of note” was found Sunday, calling it a “fruitless day.”
The U.S. Pacific Command said it was sending a black box locator to the region in case a debris field is located.
Malaysia’s Ministry of Transport said Sunday that it had received images from French authorities “showing potential objects in the vicinity of the southern corridor.” The images are from the southern Indian Ocean, where the hunt continues for the plane, which vanished March 8 with 239 people aboard.
The French data was captured Friday and converted into fuzzy images. One of the objects was estimated to be about 70 feet long and 40 feet wide.
The news of the French images came a day after China released a satellite image captured Tuesday depicting an object about the size of the one in the French data, located about 75 miles south of where an Australian satellite picked up an image of two objects a week ago.
The search areas Sunday were determined by drift modeling based on the Chinese satellite imagery, AMSA said.
On Saturday, an aircraft aiding the hunt for the missing jet found some small objects in the search area, including a wooden pallet, the safety authority said.
Mike Barton, chief of AMSA’s rescue coordination center, told reporters in Canberra, Australia, that the wooden pallet was reportedly surrounded by what appeared to be strapping belts of different colors and lengths.
“We went to some of the expert airlines, and the use of wooden pallets is quite common in the industry,” Barton said. “They’re usually packed into another container, which is loaded in the belly of the aircraft.”
An official with Malaysia Airlines said Sunday night that the flight was, in fact, carrying wooden pallets. The official spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity in keeping with company policy.
A cargo manifest for Flight 370 has been requested, AMSA spokesman Sam Cardwell said.
Despite the lack of answers, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott appeared positive.
“We have now had a number of very credible leads and there is increasing hope — no more than hope, no more than hope — that we might be on the road to discovering what did happen to this ill-fated aircraft,” Abbott said in Papua New Guinea.
“There is increasing hope — no more than hope, no more than hope — that we might be on the road to discovering what did happen to this ill-fated aircraft.”
Tony Abbott, Australian prime minister