Search for Malaysian plane resumes off Australia

MELBOURNE, Australia — A freighter and planes searched the rough seas of one of the remotest places on Earth for a missing plane, following up on what Malaysia authorities said was the “best lead” thus far for the location of the jet.

Australian satellite images detected large pieces of debris floating about 1,000 miles off the coast of Australia and halfway to the desolate islands of the Antarctic.

A search in the southern Indian Ocean was halted Thursday because of bad weather and nightfall.

Malaysia

Airlines Flight 370, headed from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, went missing early March 8 with 239 passengers and crew aboard.

The objects seen in the satellite photos are “of reasonable size and probably awash with water,” John Young, general manager of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, said at a news conference Thursday in Canberra, Australia’s capital.

“This is a lead, it’s probably the best lead we have right now,” Young said. He cautioned that the objects could be seaborne debris along a shipping route where containers can fall off cargo vessels, although the larger object is longer than a container.

But another analyst said the debris is most likely not pieces of the missing Boeing 777 jetliner, and that this could be the latest in a string of false leads since the plane disappeared.

“The chances of it being debris from the airplane are probably small, and the chances of it being debris from other shipping are probably large,” said Jason Middleton, an aviation professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

1st on scene

A Norwegian merchant ship was the first vessel on the scene in a16nautical-mile area 1,550 miles southwest of Perth, where authorities believe the possible debris was floating.

Search planes also were sent to the vicinity, and other ships were en route.

Australian authorities asked the merchant ship, which was en route to Perth, to take a more southerly approach two days ago to the search site, officials of the Norwegian shipping company Hoegh Autoliners told the Norwegian newspaper VG .

Other aircraft and ships are traveling to the area to try to locate and examine the objects, one of which is believed to be almost 80 feet long. A U.S. P-8 Poseidon aircraft was already on the scene, Young said, but had poor visibility.

Earlier, the crew of the Poseidon told ABC News that the aircraft was getting radar hits of “significant size” beneath the surface near the objects but that it was too early to tell whether these hits were related to debris from the missing plane.

Clinging to hope

The AMSA’s Young said visibility was poor and may hamper efforts to find the objects. He said they “are relatively indistinct on the imagery ... but those who are experts indicate they are credible sightings.”

The images were taken Sunday.

It was not immediately clear why they only surfaced Thursday.