The search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 resumed
Sunday, but stormy weather may cause problems, the Australian Maritime Safety
Authority said.
A Chinese aircraft took off at 6:20 a.m. local time (6:20
p.m. ET). Other aircraft, including a South Korean P-3 Orion and a U.S. P-8
Poseidon, were preparing to depart from Perth.
Ten planes will fly over 123,167 square miles (319,000
square kilometers) located about 1,150 miles (1,850 kilometers) west of Perth,
the AMSA said.
Weather in the search area is forecast to worsen with light
showers and low clouds, though search operations are expected to continue, the
authority said. See more after the jump.........
Eight ships will join the search by the end of the day,
including the Australian Ocean Shield, which will be fitted with a "black
box" detector and an autonomous underwater vehicle, AMSA said. All ships
will seek to locate and identify objects sighted by aircraft over the past two
days.
Search experts said the clock is ticking.
Michael Kay, a former adviser to the UK Ministry of Defence,
said on CNN that the batteries on the flight data recorder, sometimes called
the black box, are designed to last only about 30 days. The plane disappeared
March 8 -- three weeks ago.
Eight planes and a number of ships scoured some 97,000
square miles of water Saturday for signs of the plane, with aircraft reporting
sightings of objects similar to those reported Friday, the Australian Maritime
Safety Authority said.
Two vessels -- one of them a Chinese warship -- retrieved
objects, "but so far no objects confirmed to be related to MH370 have been
recovered," the authority said.
Crew members aboard a Chinese plane dropped buoys to mark
three suspected debris sites, China's state-run CCTV reported.
"After entering the search area, the airlifter flew for
about 20 minutes," crew member Wang Zhenwu told the television network.
"We found an L-shaped debris in orange color right below the plane's right
wing. Then within around three minutes, we found a stripe-shaped object. We
immediately reported our findings to the captain."
The captain, Liu Jun, said buoys containing dye were dropped
on each of the suspected sites, according to CCTV.
Relatives complaining
Relatives of the 239 people on board the plane have
complained about receiving mixed messages.
But Saturday, a Malaysian official met with relatives and
then told reporters he had not closed the door on the hope of relatives that
survivors may exist among the 239 people aboard the Boeing 777-200 ER that went
missing March 8.
"Even hoping against hope, no matter how remote, of
course, we are praying and we will continue our search for the possible
survivors," said Hishammuddin Hussein, Malaysia's acting transportation
minister.
"More than that, I told the families I cannot give them
false hope. The best we can do is pray and that we must be sensitive to them
that, as long as there is even a remote chance of a survivor, we will pray and
do whatever it takes."
Chinese relatives in Kuala Lumpur told CNN that Malaysian
authorities are restricting their movement and access to information.
When a briefing for them was not held Saturday, the Chinese
relatives said they were deterred from attending a briefing for Maylasian
relatives. They ended up talking to a Malaysia Airlines official after the
briefing.
'They're still alive'
In Beijing on Saturday, some of the relatives of the missing
vented their anguish in the streets.
"They're all still alive, my son and everyone on
board!" yelled Wen Wancheng, 63, whose only son was among the passengers.
"The plane is still there, too! They're hiding it."
He held aloft a banner that read: "Son, mom and dad's
hearts are torn to pieces. Come home soon!"
Many relatives doubtless remember the speculation from early
in the search that the plane may have landed somewhere. They implored
Hishammuddin to redouble the efforts, and he said Malaysian authorities would
do so.
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"What they want is a commitment on our part to continue
the search, and that I have given," Hishammuddin said. "For me, as
the minister responsible, this is the hardest part of my life, at the
moment," he told reporters.
"Miracles do happen, remote or otherwise, and that is
the hope that the families want me to convey -- not only to the Malaysian
government, MAS (Malaysia Airlines), but also to the world at large," he
said.
He said the effort was still to find survivors.
Sea objects
On Saturday that meant hunting again for plane debris in an
ocean awash in debris -- including odds and ends from passing ships -- in hopes
that among it are pieces of the jet.
After the latest data analysis, experts says they believe
that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared three weeks ago, ended up
in the southern Indian Ocean.
Investigators concluded this week that, during the flight's
initial phase, the plane was traveling faster -- and therefore burning fuel
faster -- than they had thought. Authorities have concluded that it could not
have traveled as far south as they had thought earlier.
The new search area is 1,100 kilometers (680 miles)
northeast of the previous one and closer to Australia's coast, so it's easier
to reach. It's also marked by calmer waters.
Ships plowed the waters of the search area and eight planes
searched from above.
"Unfortunately, we didn't find anything of significance
out there," flight captain Russell Adams said after returning to Perth.
Pieces of debris spotted Friday were hundreds of miles away
from each other, but given the ocean conditions and the time passed since the
airplane's purported crash, they could be part of the same object.
Friday's sightings included 11 small objects spotted by a
military P-3 plane. CNN's Kyung Lah, who went out on a U.S. Navy P-8 search
plane Friday, said its crew spotted white objects, orange rope and a blue bag.
"At one point, sure, everybody on board got a little
excited, but it's impossible to tell from that distance what anything is,"
she said.
If and when the jet is found, the key question would remain:
Why did it go down? That may not be answered until investigators retrieve the
aircraft and try, literally, to piece together what happened to it.
Vast, shifting search
The shifting hunt for Flight 370 has spanned vast bodies of
water and continents.
It started in the South China Sea between Malaysia and
Vietnam, where the plane went out of contact with air traffic controllers.
When authorities learned of radar data suggesting the plane
had turned westward across the Malay Peninsula after losing contact, they
expanded the search into the Strait of Malacca.
When those efforts proved fruitless, the search spread north
into the Andaman Sea and northern Indian Ocean.
It then ballooned dramatically after Malaysia announced
March 15 that satellite data showed the plane could have flown along either of
two huge arcs, one stretching northwest into the Asian land mass, the other
southwest into the Indian Ocean.
The search area at that point reached nearly 3 million
square miles.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said that further
analysis of the data led authorities to conclude the plane went down in the
southern Indian Ocean, far from land.
Malaysian officials then told the families of those on board
that nobody would have survived. On Saturday, after confronting relatives'
grief, they made that conclusion seem less final.
Source: CNN
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