Malaysia: Satellite Finds Large Object In Plane Search
By: CBS News Updated: Sat 8:32 AM, Mar 22, 2014
By: CBS News Home
/ Article Source: AMSA (Australian Maritime Safety Authority) The search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 resumed Friday in the southern Indian Ocean with long-range reconnaissance aircraft looking for possible debris from the jetliner in one of the most remote locations on Earth. Aircraft from Australia, New Zealand and the United States have staggered departures to an area roughly 1,500 miles southwest of Perth, where two objects were captured on satellite and described as possible pieces of the commercial jetliner, according to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (CBS) -- A satellite image released by China on Saturday offers the latest sign that wreckage from a Malaysia Airlines plane lost for more than two weeks could be in a remote stretch of the southern Indian Ocean where planes and ships have been searching for three days.
China's State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense said on its website that a Chinese satellite took an image of an object 72 feet by 43 feet around noon Tuesday.
CBS News correspondent Holly Williams reports from Perth, Australia, where the country's search flights are headquartered, that the Chinese government also said a smaller object roughly 40 feet in length was also seen.
The image location was about 75 miles south of where an Australian satellite viewed two objects two days earlier. The larger object was about as long as the large one the Chinese satellite detected.
"The news that I just received is that the Chinese ambassador received a satellite image of a floating object in the southern corridor and they will be sending ships to verify," Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told reporters Saturday.
The latest image is another clue in the baffling search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which dropped off air traffic control screens March 8 over the Gulf of Thailand with 239 people on board.
The delay in releasing the satellite image could be because Chinese experts had to examine it. There was a similar delay in the release of the earlier images for that reason.
After about a week of confusion, authorities said pings sent by the Boeing 777 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.
The discovery of the two objects by the Australian satellite led several countries to send planes and ships to a stretch of the Indian Ocean about 1,550 miles southwest of Australia. One of the objects spotted in the earlier satellite imagery was described as almost 80 feet in length and the other was 15 feet. But three days of searching have produced nothing.
"CBS This Morning" contributor Michio Kaku, a physics professor at the City University of New York, said this week that the area is "quite turbulent, and even a gentle current of 5 miles an hour could carry debris of hundreds of miles across."
Two military planes from China arrived Saturday in Perth to join Australian, New Zealand and U.S. aircraft in the search. Japanese planes will arrive Sunday and ships were in the area or on their way.
The flights Saturday were in relatively good weather, but did not yield any results. It was not immediately known whether the newly released Chinese satellite image would change the search area on Sunday.
Even if both satellites detected the same object, it may be unrelated to the plane. One possibility is that it could have fallen off a cargo vessel.
Warren Truss, Australia's acting prime minister while Tony Abbott is abroad, said before the new satellite data was announced that a complete search could take a long time.
Aircraft involved in the search include two ultra-long-range commercial jets and four P3 Orions, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said.
But because the search area is a four-hour flight from land, the Orions can search for about only two hours before they must fly back. The commercial jets can stay for five hours before heading back to the base.
The area where the objects were identified by the Australian authorities are marked by strong currents and rough seas, and the ocean depth varies between 3,770 feet and 23,000 feet.
In addition, Hishammuddin said a low-level warning had been declared for Tropical Cyclone Gillian, although that was north of Australia and closer to Indonesia. "Very strong winds and rough seas are expected there," he said.
The Chinese planes that arrived in Perth on Saturday were expected to begin searching on Sunday. A small flotilla of ships from China will also join the hunt, along with a refueling vessel that will allow ships to stay in the search area for a long time, Truss said.
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