 "Flight 370 ended in Indian Ocean: Malaysia")
Malaysia's Prime Minister on Monday said further analysis of satellite data confirmed the missing Malaysian airliner went down in the southern Indian Ocean. The announcement narrowed the search area but left many questions unanswered about why it flew to such a remote part of the world.
Experts had previously held out the possibility that the jet could have flown north instead, toward Central Asia, but the new data showed that it could have gone only south, said the prime minister, Najib Razak.
Najib appeared eager to bring closure to the families of the passengers on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, two-thirds of whom are Chinese. The families have grown increasingly angry about the lack of clear information about the plane's fate. The Boeing 777, with 227 passengers and 12 crew members onboard, was headed from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing when it disappeared on March 8.
The aircraft's last known position, according to the analysis, "is a remote location, far from any possible landing sites," Najib said. "It is therefore with deep sadness and regret that I must inform you that, according to this new data, Flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean."
The new analysis of the flight path, the prime minister said, came from Inmarsat, the British company that provided the satellite data, and from Britain's air safety agency. The company had "used a type of analysis never before used in an investigation of this sort," he said.
Shortly before the prime minister spoke at 10 pm local time, Malaysia Airlines officials informed the relatives of the missing passengers and crew gathered at a hotel near Kuala Lumpur, and sent text messages to those who were elsewhere.
The hunt for the missing plane has focused on a section of the southern Indian Ocean in recent days, and an Australian naval vessel searched there on Monday after a military surveillance aircraft spotted what was described as possible debris from the missing jetliner.
Najib said the Malaysian authorities would hold a news conference on Tuesday to give further details about the satellite data analysis and other developments in the search.
After a number of false sightings over more than two weeks of search efforts, Australian officials were cautious about what the crew members of a Royal Australian Air Force P-3 Orion aircraft had spotted as they combed the search area Monday.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott told Parliament that the crew reported seeing two objects, "a gray or green circular object" and "an orange rectangular object," in the ocean about 1,550 miles southwest of Perth, in western Australia.
"We don't know whether any of these objects are from MH370," Abbott said. The objects in the water could be flotsam, he said.
Even so, the tenuous lead was treated in Australia as a significant development.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority said that a naval survey ship, the Success, was on the scene and that the crew was looking for the objects. Andrew Thomas, a journalist with the Al Jazeera television news network who was aboard the Orion aircraft, said that the crew spotted four confirmed objects, that flares were dropped and that the Success was nearby.
The floating objects spotted by the Australian plane were different from the possible debris reportedly seen during the first search flights by two Chinese Air Force Ilyushin IL-76 aircraft the same day. Later on Monday, Australian authorities said all search aircraft had finished their missions for the day and had reported no further sightings.
The crew of one of the Chinese planes spotted "suspicious objects," according to Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, which had a reporter on the search plane. But the description was vague and the observation was made during poor weather conditions. A Chinese diplomat in Australia, Qu Boxun, told reporters that the plane was at "a very high altitude when the objects were spotted."
Chris McLaughlin, a vice president at Inmarsat, the British satellite operator, said the company had spent the past six days reviewing the data it had abot Flight 370 in close consultation with Boeing and other parties involved in the investigation. Earlier analysis of the seven signals received on March 8 by one of its satellites over the Indian Ocean told investigators that the plane had probably wound up somewhere along of two broad arcs, one stretching south into the ocean and the other stretching north from Laos through southwestern China into Central Asia. But the new analysis announced on Monday allowed investigators to rule out the northern arc.
"Our measured series of signals very much mirror the predicted southern track after the last possible turn," McLaughlin said, adding that they were consistent with previous indications that the plane continued on at a more or less constant speed and direction for the last hours of the flight.
He said Inmarsat was confident enough in the new analysis, which it reviewed with Boeing and with a number of independent aviation experts, that the company submitted its findings on Sunday to the Malaysians by way of the British safety agency, the Air Accidents Investigations Bureau.
"What we still can't say is what happened at the end, when the plane ran out of fuel," McLaughlin said. "We have no way of knowing if it dropped from the sky or glided."
Experts had previously held out the possibility that the jet could have flown north instead, toward Central Asia, but the new data showed that it could have gone only south, said the prime minister, Najib Razak.
Najib appeared eager to bring closure to the families of the passengers on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, two-thirds of whom are Chinese. The families have grown increasingly angry about the lack of clear information about the plane's fate. The Boeing 777, with 227 passengers and 12 crew members onboard, was headed from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing when it disappeared on March 8.
The aircraft's last known position, according to the analysis, "is a remote location, far from any possible landing sites," Najib said. "It is therefore with deep sadness and regret that I must inform you that, according to this new data, Flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean."
The new analysis of the flight path, the prime minister said, came from Inmarsat, the British company that provided the satellite data, and from Britain's air safety agency. The company had "used a type of analysis never before used in an investigation of this sort," he said.
Shortly before the prime minister spoke at 10 pm local time, Malaysia Airlines officials informed the relatives of the missing passengers and crew gathered at a hotel near Kuala Lumpur, and sent text messages to those who were elsewhere.
The hunt for the missing plane has focused on a section of the southern Indian Ocean in recent days, and an Australian naval vessel searched there on Monday after a military surveillance aircraft spotted what was described as possible debris from the missing jetliner.
Najib said the Malaysian authorities would hold a news conference on Tuesday to give further details about the satellite data analysis and other developments in the search.
After a number of false sightings over more than two weeks of search efforts, Australian officials were cautious about what the crew members of a Royal Australian Air Force P-3 Orion aircraft had spotted as they combed the search area Monday.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott told Parliament that the crew reported seeing two objects, "a gray or green circular object" and "an orange rectangular object," in the ocean about 1,550 miles southwest of Perth, in western Australia.
"We don't know whether any of these objects are from MH370," Abbott said. The objects in the water could be flotsam, he said.
Even so, the tenuous lead was treated in Australia as a significant development.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority said that a naval survey ship, the Success, was on the scene and that the crew was looking for the objects. Andrew Thomas, a journalist with the Al Jazeera television news network who was aboard the Orion aircraft, said that the crew spotted four confirmed objects, that flares were dropped and that the Success was nearby.
The floating objects spotted by the Australian plane were different from the possible debris reportedly seen during the first search flights by two Chinese Air Force Ilyushin IL-76 aircraft the same day. Later on Monday, Australian authorities said all search aircraft had finished their missions for the day and had reported no further sightings.
The crew of one of the Chinese planes spotted "suspicious objects," according to Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, which had a reporter on the search plane. But the description was vague and the observation was made during poor weather conditions. A Chinese diplomat in Australia, Qu Boxun, told reporters that the plane was at "a very high altitude when the objects were spotted."
Chris McLaughlin, a vice president at Inmarsat, the British satellite operator, said the company had spent the past six days reviewing the data it had abot Flight 370 in close consultation with Boeing and other parties involved in the investigation. Earlier analysis of the seven signals received on March 8 by one of its satellites over the Indian Ocean told investigators that the plane had probably wound up somewhere along of two broad arcs, one stretching south into the ocean and the other stretching north from Laos through southwestern China into Central Asia. But the new analysis announced on Monday allowed investigators to rule out the northern arc.
"Our measured series of signals very much mirror the predicted southern track after the last possible turn," McLaughlin said, adding that they were consistent with previous indications that the plane continued on at a more or less constant speed and direction for the last hours of the flight.
He said Inmarsat was confident enough in the new analysis, which it reviewed with Boeing and with a number of independent aviation experts, that the company submitted its findings on Sunday to the Malaysians by way of the British safety agency, the Air Accidents Investigations Bureau.
"What we still can't say is what happened at the end, when the plane ran out of fuel," McLaughlin said. "We have no way of knowing if it dropped from the sky or glided."
©2014 The New York Times News Service