A Chinese satellite searching for missing
Malaysian Airlines flight has found what is being
described as three ‘large, floating objects’ in the
South China Sea, UK Daily Mail reports
The potentially crucial development comes
on the fifth day of the search for the Boeing
777 seems to corroborate the testimony of a
New Zealand oil worker who claims to have
witnessed the crash of the missing airplane
early on Saturday morning. Coni
It is also in the original search area under
the flight’s original search path and appears
to discount the theory that the aircraft turned
back towards Malaysia and crashed
hundreds of miles away on the other side of
the Malaysian peninsula.
‘IIt’s where it’s supposed to be,’ Peter Goelz, a
former National Transportation Safety Board
managing director, told CNN remarking on the
‘great skepticism’ about reports the aircraft
carrying 239 passengers had turned around to go
back over Malaysia.
‘I think they’ve got to get vessels and aircraft
there as quickly as humanly possible.’
The new suspect crash site is about 140 miles
from the flight’s last radar contact as broadcast
by its transponder.
The three objects are large, measuring 43ft by
59ft, 46ft by 62ft and 79ft by 72ft.
‘Chinese satellites have found smoke and floating
objects … At present we cannot confirm this is
related to the missing aircraft,’ said Li Jiaxiang,
China’s civil aviation chief on Thursday.
The site is also near where South China Sea oil rig
worker Michael Jerome McKay today described
seeing what he believes to be the plane burning –
in one piece for 10-15 seconds – flying at a high
altitude slightly off from the standard route of
planes that cross the sea shortly after the plane
vanished.
‘There was no lateral movement, so it was either
coming toward our location, stationary, or going
away from our location,’ he wrote in a letter to his
employers about the sighting on Saturday and
seen by ABC News.
Deputy general director of Vietnam’s air traffic
management, Doan Huu Gia, confirmed he had
been sent an email from McKay, the BBC reported.
‘We received an email from a New Zealander who
works on one of the oil rigs off Vung Tau.
‘He said he spotted a burning [object] at that
location, some 300 km southeast of Vung Tau.’
Vietnam has already searched the area where
Chinese satellites showed objects that could be
debris from a missing Malaysia Airlines jet but a
plane has been sent to check the area again,
Vietnamese military officials said.
‘We are aware and we sent planes to cover that
area over the past three days,’ Deputy Transport
Minister Pham Quy Tieu told Reuters. ‘Today a
(military) plane will search the area again,’ he
said.
And on Thursday morning Vietnamese authorities
said two military jets searching for clues top the
missing Malaysia Airlines jet found no wreckage at
the location a Reuters journalist on board said.
Aircraft repeatedly circled the area over the South
China Sea but were unable to detect any objects,
said the journalist, who flew aboard a Antonov 26
cargo plane for three hours.
China’s State Administration for Science,
Technology and Industry for National Defense
announced the discovery of the images in the area
where rescuers first started looking on Saturday –
along with other images of what appear to show
an oil slick tracing the surrounding area.
The images were captured on March 9 – the day
after the plane went missing, but were somehow
not released until Wednesday. There were 153
Chinese nationals on board the flight.
China’s State Administration for Science,
Technology and Industry for National Defence
gave no reason for the delay in releasing the
images – or why it has not passed the pictures to
Malaysian authorities.
Culled from UK Daily Mail
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