Associated Press and National Post Staff | March 24, 2014 8:39 AM ET
AFP PHOTO / GOH CHAI HINGOH CHAI HIN/AFP/Getty ImagesA relative (C) of passengers on Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 cries after hearing the news that the plane plunged into Indian Ocean at a hotel in Beijing on March 24, 2014. The missing Malaysia Airlines jet came down in the Indian Ocean, Prime Minister Najib Razak said March 24, as the airline reportedly told relatives it had been lost and that none on board survived.
- Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 crashed into Indian Ocean: officials
Officials have confirmed that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 crashed into the Indian Ocean and there are no survivors among the 239 people on board.
Malaysia Airlines sent the following text to family members of passengers Monday, two weeks after the plane went missing.
“Malaysia Airlines deeply regrets that we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those on board survived. As you will hear in the next hour from Malaysia’s Prime Minister, we must now accept all evidence suggests the plane went down in the Southern Indian Ocean.”
Malaysian prime minster Najib Razak held a press conference Monday and said that it was with “great sadness” that new data had shown the plane’s last location was in the Southern Indian Ocean, southwest of Perth, Australia.
“This is a remote location, far from any possible landing sites,” he said.
Razak’s statement came on information from British satellite company Inmarsat and the U.K’s Air Accident Investigation Branch. It did not make any mention to the discovery of several objects spotted in the area believed to be where the plane went down.
Inmarsat had data triangulating possible positions for the aircraft one day after it went missing, one route to the north and another to the south, but that data was not properly used in the search until a week later.
Malaysia did not receive the data until March 12, and it then took another three days until the data was released, the Washington Post reports.
Razak did not give any indication on why the plane was so far off course.
The families’ grief came pouring out after 17 days of waiting for some definitive word on the fate of their relatives aboard the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Women shrieked and sobbed uncontrollably. Men and women held up their loved ones who were nearly collapsing.
Malaysia’s prime minister gave that word in a televised news conference from Kuala Lumpur, saying there was no longer any reasonable doubt that the aircraft ended up in the southern Indian Ocean far from any possible landing site.
Relatives of passengers in Beijing had been called to a hotel near the airport to hear the announcement. Afterward, they filed out of a conference room in heart-wrenching grief.
One woman collapsed and fell on her knees, crying “My son! My son!”
Chinese and Australian planes on Monday spotted several objects in an area identified by multiple satellite images as containing possible debris from the missing Malaysian airliner, boosting hopes the frustrating search in the southern Indian Ocean could turn up more clues to the jet’s fate.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the crew on board an Australian P3 Orion had located two objects in the search zone — the first grey or green and circular, the second orange and rectangular.
An Australian navy supply ship, the HMAS Success, was on the scene Monday night trying to locate and recover the objects, and Malaysia’s Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said the vessel could locate the objects within a few hours or by Tuesday morning.
Monday’s sightings hold particular promise because they are in real time. Previous sightings by satellite had occurred a few days before they were confirmed and searchers found nothing when they reached the co-ordinates.
Separately, the crew aboard one of two Chinese IL-76 aircraft combing the search zone observed two large objects and several smaller ones spread across several square kilometres, Xinhua News Agency reported. At least one of the items — a white, square-shaped object — was captured on a camera aboard the plane, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said.
“We are still racing against time,” Hong said at a ministry briefing. “As long as there is a glimmer of hope, our search efforts will carry on.”
AFP PHOTO / MOHD RASFANMOHD RASFAN/AFP/Getty ImagesMalaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak (C) delivers a statement on the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 during a press conference at the Putra World Trade Center (PWTC) in Kuala Lumpur on March 24, 2014. The Malaysian Prime Minister on March 24 said that the flight of the missing Malaysian airlines MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean.
China has redirected the icebreaker Snow Dragon toward the latest find, and that ship was due to arrive early Tuesday. Six other Chinese ships have been directed toward the search zone along with 20 fishing vessels that have been asked to help, Lei said.
Australian Maritime Safety AuthorityThis handout satellite image made available by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority shows a map of the planned search area for
missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 on March 24, 2014.
Relatives of passengers aboard the missing Boeing 777 were avidly following news reports of the latest sightings, desperate for any word on the fate of loved ones.
“We’re eager to learn more about this,” said Wang Zhen who is staying at a hotel near Beijing. His father and mother, Wang Linshi and Xiong Yunming, were both aboard the flight as part of a group of Chinese artists touring Malaysia.
Satellite images and data released by Australia, China and France in recent days have identified possible debris in the area that may be linked to the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 on March 8 with 239 people on board — two-thirds of whom are Chinese.
This handout photo taken on March 22, 2014 and released on March 24, 2014 by Australia's Department of Defence shows the HMAS
Success from an RAAF AP-3C Orion in the southern Indian Ocean as part of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority-led search for
Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
The ocean depth in the search area ranges between 1,150 and 7,000 metres and the U.S. Pacific command said it was sending a black box locator in case a debris field is located.
The Towed Pinger Locator, which is pulled behind a vessel at slow speeds, has highly sensitive listening capability so that if the wreck site is located, it can hear the black box “pinger” down to a depth of about 20,000 feet, Cmdr. Chris Budde, a U.S. Seventh Fleet operations officer, said in a statement.
Xinhua, Lui Siu WaiA Chinese IL-76 plane searching for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 sits on the tarmac following landing at Perth airport,
Australia, after a sortie on Monday, March 24, 2014. A Chinese plane on Monday spotted two white, square-shaped objects in an area
identified by satellite imagery as containing possible debris.
“This movement is simply a prudent effort to preposition equipment and trained personnel closer to the search area so that if debris is found we will be able to respond as quickly as possible since the battery life of the black box’s pinger is limited,” Budde said.
An Australian defence official said an Australian navy support vessel, the Ocean Shield, was also moving into the search zone and would arrive in three or four days. The ship is equipped with acoustic detection equipment that can search for the missing plane’s black box.
AFP PHOTO / Paul KaneA cameraman films an RAAF P3 Orion as it returns to Pearce Air Base in Bullsbrook, 35 kms north of Perth on March 24, 2014 after
sighting debris during a search mission for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 over the southern Indian Ocean.
There was no sign the move was linked to any breakthrough in the mystery of the plane, but rather as a preparation.
“The time for the battery life (of the ’pinger’) is potentially only a month,” said Jason Middleton, aviation professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. “If debris was found, it would be terrible not have anything on site and waste time” getting a ping detector to the region. “I think they’re planning ahead and getting it ready.”
Foul weather was threatening the search efforts in the area, about 2,500 kilometres southwest of Perth. Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology reported increased winds, low cloud and a reduction in visibility. On Tuesday, a cold front was expected to move through the search area from the west, bringing showers, more low cloud and less visibility. Tropical Cyclone Gillian, which is farther to the north, will not impact the area.
The search was given added momentum when a French satellite detected potential debris on Sunday, after Australia and China earlier released satellite images identifying suspect objects.
Bohdan Warchomij / Getty ImagesA Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orion is inspected at RAAF base Pearce prior to commencing the search for possible debris from
the Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 on March 24, 2014 in Perth, Australia.
Australian Transport Minister Warren Truss said the French radar data located the objects about 850 kilometres north of the current search area, and that “we need to check that out as well.”
Australian authorities had sent planes and a ship to try to locate a wooden pallet that was spotted on Saturday from a search plane, but the spotters were unable to take photos of it.
Wooden pallets are most commonly used by ships but are also used in airplane cargo holds, and an official with Malaysia Airlines said Sunday night that the flight was, in fact, carrying wooden pallets. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with company policy.
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.
JASON REED / AFPA Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force Lockheed P-3C Orion aircraft crew member wipes clean the windshield of the aircraft before it
takes off from RAAF base Pearce in Bullsbrook, 35 km north of Perth, on March 24, 2014 to search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight
MH370.
Malaysian authorities have not ruled out any possible explanation for what happened to the jet, but have said the evidence so far suggests it was deliberately turned back across Malaysia to the Strait of Malacca, with its communications systems disabled. They are unsure what happened next.
Authorities are considering the possibilities of hijacking, sabotage, terrorism or issues related to the mental health of the pilots or someone else on board.
Malaysia’s police chief, Inspector General Khalid Abu Bakar reiterated at a news conference Monday that all the passengers had been cleared of suspicion.
But he said that the pilots and crew were still being investigated. He would not comment on whether investigators had recovered the files that were deleted a month earlier from the home flight simulator of the chief pilot.
In the U.S., Tony Blinken, President Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser, said on CNN: “There is no prevailing theory.”
“Publicly or privately, we don’t know,” he said. “We’re chasing down every theory.”
Paul Kane/Getty ImagesA Japanese Maritime Self Defence Force member inspects a P-3 Orion prior to departure from the RAAF base Pearce to commence
a search for possible debris from the Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 on March 24, 2014 in Perth, Australia.
AP Photo/Paul KaneGround crew with Japan's Maritime Self-Defence Force line the runway to wave farewell to colleagues on a P-3C Orion as it taxis from
the Royal Australian Air Force Pearce Base to commence a search for debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, in Perth,
Australia, Monday, March 24, 2014.
Bohdan Warchomij / Getty ImagesAircrew in the cockpit of a Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orion at RAAF base Pearce on assignment to Southern Indian Ocean to
commence a search for possible debris from the Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 on March 24, 2014 in Perth, Australia.
Bohdan Warchomij / Getty ImagesFlt Lieutenant Josh Williams at the controls of a Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orion from RAAF base Pearce on assignment to
Southern Indian Ocean to commence a search for possible debris from the Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 on March 24, 2014 in Perth,
Australia.
Bohdan Warchomij / Getty ImagesAircrew look out of a window of a Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orion from RAAF base Pearce on assignment to Southern Indian
Ocean to commence a search for possible debris from the Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 on March 24, 2014 in Perth, Australia.
Bohdan Warchomij / Getty ImagesFlt Lieutenant Gavin Oakley on board a Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orion from RAAF base Pearce on assignment to Southern
Indian Ocean to commence a search for possible debris from the Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 on March 24, 2014 in Perth, Australia.
GRED WOOD / AFPMembers of the media sit camped out near the runway waiting for the return of an RAAF Orion aircraft at Pearce Air Base in Bullsbrook,
35 kms north of Perth, after the plane assisted in the continuing search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in the southern Indian
Ocean on March 24, 2014.
Source: http://news.nationalpost.com
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