‘Radar echoes’ suggest debris
PERTH, Australia — France provided new satellite data Sunday showing possible debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines jet, as searchers combing a remote part of the southern Indian Ocean tried without success to locate a pallet that could be a key clue in solving one of the world’s biggest aviation mysteries.
The new information given to Malaysia’s government and forwarded to searchers in Australia shows “potential objects” in the same part of the ocean where satellite images previously released by Australia and China showed objects that could be debris from the plane, Malaysia’s Ministry of Transport said.
Flight 370 went missing over the Gulf of Thailand on March 8 with 239 people aboard en route from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing, setting off a multinational search effort that has turned up nothing conclusive so far on what happened to the jet.
Sunday’s search was frustrating because “there was cloud down to the surface and at times we were completely enclosed by cloud,” Royal Australian Air Force Flight Lt. Russell Adams told reporters at the military base where the planes take off and land on their missions.
Nothing of interest to searchers was found, he said.
Details on the French data were not immediately released. The statement from Malaysia called the information “new satellite images,” while a statement from France’s Foreign Ministry said “radar echoes taken by a satellite” had located floating debris but made no mention of imagery.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority, which is leading the search in waters off Australia, declined to offer details about the information from France.
But a Malaysian official involved in the search mission said the French data consisted of radar echoes captured Friday and converted into fuzzy images that located objects about 930 kilometres north of the spots where the objects in the images released by Australia and China were located.
One of the objects located was estimated to be about the same size as an object captured Tuesday by the Chinese satellite that appeared to be 22 metres by 13 metres, said the official, who declined to be identified. It was not possible to determine precise dimensions from the French data, the official said.
Information about the new data emerged as authorities co-ordinating the search, which is being conducted about 2,500 kilometres southwest of Perth, sent planes and a ship to try to “re-find” a wooden pallet that appeared to be surrounded by straps of varying lengths and colours. It was spotted Saturday by spotters in a search plane, but no images were captured of it and a military PC Orion military plane dispatched to locate the pallet could not find it.
An Australian navy ship was also involved in the search.
AMSA said the aircraft that spotted the pallet was unable to take photos of it.
Sam Cardwell, a spokesman for AMSA, said the maritime agency had requested a cargo manifest from Malaysia Airlines, but he was unsure whether it had been received as of Sunday night.
Malaysia Airlines asked The Associated Press to submit questions via email for comment on whether Flight 370 had wooden pallets aboard when it disappeared, but did not immediately respond to the email.
An official with Malaysia Airlines said Sunday night that the flight was carrying wooden pallets but provided no further details, including the number of pallets. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of company policy preventing the official from being named.
When Brazilian searchers in 2009 were looking for debris from Air France Flight 447 after it mysteriously plunged into the Atlantic Ocean, they first found a wooden pallet. The military initially reported that the pallet came from the Air France flight, but backtracked hours later and said the plane had not been carrying any wooden pallets.
The southern Indian Ocean is thought to be a potential area to find the jet because Malaysian authorities have said pings sent by the Boeing 777-200 for several hours after it disappeared indicated that the plane ended up in one of two huge arcs: a northern corridor stretching from Malaysia to Central Asia, or a southern corridor that stretches toward Antarctica.