Mystery of MH370 remains unsolved
Waters in ocean search area rough and extremely cold
It’s one of the roughest patches of water in the world
AS SEARCHERS enter their third day of scouring the southern Indian Ocean, a marine expert warned a human could not survive in those waters beyond “a few hours”.
Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 left Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing two weeks ago today, carrying 239 passengers including six Australians.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott described the lost flight as an “extraordinary riddle”.
Military jets from Australia, New Zealand and the United States spent yesterday searching a huge expanse of notoriously rough and horribly cold ocean.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority was helping co-ordinate the search of the Southern Ocean after satellite imagery detected objects – some up to 24m in size – that could be aircraft debris but could also be shipping containers lost overboard.
Charitha Pattiaratchi with the University of Western Australia’s Oceans Institute said the surface temperature of water in the search area, about 2500km south-west of Perth, was about 10 degrees.
“It’s one of the roughest patches of water in the world; you can’t really get any rougher than that region,” Prof Pattiaratchi said.
“The survival rate in the water is probably a few hours.”
Waves of between 5m and 10m were common, depending on the weather.
Mr Abbott, speaking in Papua New Guinea yesterday, said the government was “throwing everything” at the search effort to find out more.
“We owe it to the families and the friends and the loved ones of the almost 240 people on flight MH370 to do everything we can to try to resolve what is as yet an extraordinary riddle.”
The missing include Queensland couple Rodney Burrows and his wife Mary and their friends Bob and Cathy Lawton.