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| Good-weather window spurs Australia to expand search for missing jetliner | Good-weather window spurs Australia to expand search for missing jetliner |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Australia expanded the search for missing the Malaysia Airlines jetliner Saturday as spotters tried to take advantage of some better weather in the southern Indian Ocean to look for any debris and survivors. | KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Australia expanded the search for missing the Malaysia Airlines jetliner Saturday as spotters tried to take advantage of some better weather in the southern Indian Ocean to look for any debris and survivors. |
| The search for the missing plane has now entered a third week, with hopes for a breakthrough hinging on indistinct images of some large floating objects spotted by a commercial satellite six days ago in a desolate stretch of ocean almost as close to Antarctica as to Australia. | The search for the missing plane has now entered a third week, with hopes for a breakthrough hinging on indistinct images of some large floating objects spotted by a commercial satellite six days ago in a desolate stretch of ocean almost as close to Antarctica as to Australia. |
| For the past two days, surveillance planes have been passing back and forth over the Indian Ocean to try and locate the objects, without any result so far. The search has become a race against time — before the objects drift too far from their original location, before they break up or sink in heavy ocean swells, and because bad weather is expected to set in on Sunday and last through next week. | |
| “We’ve had a lot of aircraft out over the last 48 hours, so far because of the weather conditions there’s been no possibility for a visual on this debris,” Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott told reporters in Papua New Guinea. “I understand that conditions in the southern Indian Ocean are better today so we’ve got six aircraft in the area.” | “We’ve had a lot of aircraft out over the last 48 hours, so far because of the weather conditions there’s been no possibility for a visual on this debris,” Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott told reporters in Papua New Guinea. “I understand that conditions in the southern Indian Ocean are better today so we’ve got six aircraft in the area.” |
| “Later today an Australian naval vessel will be in the area. As some of you know there are aircraft and vessels from other nations joining this search, because tenuous though it is inevitably, this is the first credible evidence of anything that has happened to flight MH370,” Abbott said. | “Later today an Australian naval vessel will be in the area. As some of you know there are aircraft and vessels from other nations joining this search, because tenuous though it is inevitably, this is the first credible evidence of anything that has happened to flight MH370,” Abbott said. |
| Given strong and unpredictable ocean currents, the two objects could already be more than 100 miles from the location where they were first spotted by satellite, experts said. The more time passes, the harder they are to find. | |
| “I am still quite concerned that it’s been two days, and yet the searches have not come out with any debris,” Malaysian Defense Minister Hishamuddin Hussein told reporters on Saturday. | |
| Three Australian P-3 Orion surveillance planes and one from New Zealand are being joined on Saturday by two long-range commercial jets, with trained volunteers on board peering out of windows. Two merchant ships are also looking in the area, and will be joined later in the day by an Australian naval vessel, while China said two of its air force transport planes were on their way from Malaysia Friday to assist. | Three Australian P-3 Orion surveillance planes and one from New Zealand are being joined on Saturday by two long-range commercial jets, with trained volunteers on board peering out of windows. Two merchant ships are also looking in the area, and will be joined later in the day by an Australian naval vessel, while China said two of its air force transport planes were on their way from Malaysia Friday to assist. |
| Saturday’s search will center on an area of roughly 14,000 square miles, lying some 1,550 miles southwest of the Australian west coast city of Perth. It partly overlaps with a smaller area searched on Friday, and with a larger patch of ocean searched on Thursday, according to maps and data supplied by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA). | Saturday’s search will center on an area of roughly 14,000 square miles, lying some 1,550 miles southwest of the Australian west coast city of Perth. It partly overlaps with a smaller area searched on Friday, and with a larger patch of ocean searched on Thursday, according to maps and data supplied by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA). |
| Warren Truss, Australia’s acting prime minister while Abbott is traveling abroad, said a complete search could take a long time, and warned the objects could already have sunk. | |
| “Even though this is not a definite lead, it is probably more solid than any other lead around the world and that is why so much effort and interest is being put into this search,” he told reporters at the air force base in Perth in western Australia that is being used as a staging area for the search planes. | |
| “It is a very remote area, but we intend to continue the search until we’re absolutely satisfied that further searching would be futile — and that day is not in sight.” | |
| The area takes four hours flying time to reach, meaning the Orions only have enough fuel for two hours searching before having to return home. The commercial jets can search on site for five hours. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority said radar sweeps of the area have turned up nothing yet, meaning the effort is largely having to rely on spotters scanning vast expanses of ocean by eye. | |
| “While these aircraft are equipped with very advanced technology, much of this search is actually visual,” Truss said. | |
| While the AMSA and pilots reported good visibility of around six miles on Friday and Saturday, that may not last. Meteorologists say worse weather is expected to set in from Sunday, with a series of fronts passing through the area throughout next week. | While the AMSA and pilots reported good visibility of around six miles on Friday and Saturday, that may not last. Meteorologists say worse weather is expected to set in from Sunday, with a series of fronts passing through the area throughout next week. |
| That raises the prospect of rain, huge swells and wind-driven waves capped by white caps in a remote and inhospitable part of the Indian Ocean swept by fierce westerly winds known as the Roaring Forties. | That raises the prospect of rain, huge swells and wind-driven waves capped by white caps in a remote and inhospitable part of the Indian Ocean swept by fierce westerly winds known as the Roaring Forties. |
| Time pressure is heightened by the fact that the location beacon built into the plane’s black box is only likely to keep transmitting for another two weeks, before its batteries run out. Even if the objects spotted by satellite are found, and turn out to have come from the plane, they could have drifted hundreds of miles from a possible crash site on March 8. | Time pressure is heightened by the fact that the location beacon built into the plane’s black box is only likely to keep transmitting for another two weeks, before its batteries run out. Even if the objects spotted by satellite are found, and turn out to have come from the plane, they could have drifted hundreds of miles from a possible crash site on March 8. |
| Complex and uncertain mathematic modelling will have to be employed to track back and find out where the plane might have come down, and naval vessels equipped with sonar technology will have to sweep the area listening for beeps from the black box. | Complex and uncertain mathematic modelling will have to be employed to track back and find out where the plane might have come down, and naval vessels equipped with sonar technology will have to sweep the area listening for beeps from the black box. |
| Then, it will be a case of searching the deep ocean floor with undersea drones, roughly 2 miles beneath the surface, to look for the main wreckage. | Then, it will be a case of searching the deep ocean floor with undersea drones, roughly 2 miles beneath the surface, to look for the main wreckage. |
| When an Air France plane crashed into the Atlantic in 2009, the first debris and bodies were pulled from the sea after five days, but it took more than two years to find the main wreckage on the ocean floor. That was partly because those mathematic models of ocean currents initially sent investigators to the wrong place. | When an Air France plane crashed into the Atlantic in 2009, the first debris and bodies were pulled from the sea after five days, but it took more than two years to find the main wreckage on the ocean floor. That was partly because those mathematic models of ocean currents initially sent investigators to the wrong place. |
| “This is going to be a long haul,” Malaysia’s Hishammudin told a news conference in Kuala Lumpur Friday. “We have to trench down on this.” | |
| The two objects were roughly 80 feet and 15 feet long respectively, and experts said the larger piece might have come from the plane’s wing. A Boeing 777-200 is 209 feet long, with a wingspan of 199 feet and a tail height of 60 feet. | The two objects were roughly 80 feet and 15 feet long respectively, and experts said the larger piece might have come from the plane’s wing. A Boeing 777-200 is 209 feet long, with a wingspan of 199 feet and a tail height of 60 feet. |
| Peter Marosszeky, an aviation expert at the University of New South Wales, said the larger object could easily have been a shipping container, noting that a couple of hundred thousand of them litter the oceans around the world. But it could also be a piece of wing, kept afloat for a while by air in empty fuel tanks, or a fin. “At the moment, it’s all conjecture,” he said. | |
| The grainy images that have been made public were captured by a commercial satellite. But it is not known if better images exist from military satellites, or indeed if countries like Russia and China would even share such images with the Australians if they possessed them. “That would declare their capabilities, and their non-capabilities,” he said. | |
| Alan Kin-Tak Lau, an expert in aircraft maintenance and accidents at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, said he did not believe the objects were from a plane, since large metal aircraft parts would usually have sunk fairly quickly. | Alan Kin-Tak Lau, an expert in aircraft maintenance and accidents at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, said he did not believe the objects were from a plane, since large metal aircraft parts would usually have sunk fairly quickly. |
| “The only material you would expect to see is luggage and baggage and seats,” he said. “The metal parts are too heavy, and for the Boeing 777, the whole aircraft is made of aluminum.” | “The only material you would expect to see is luggage and baggage and seats,” he said. “The metal parts are too heavy, and for the Boeing 777, the whole aircraft is made of aluminum.” |
| Meanwhile, the search for the Malaysia Airlines plane is continuing in other parts of the world, both over land across vast swathes of central and southeast Asia, and over other parts of the Indian Ocean where the plane’s final satellite transmissions suggested it might have been at 8:11 a.m. on the morning of March 8. | Meanwhile, the search for the Malaysia Airlines plane is continuing in other parts of the world, both over land across vast swathes of central and southeast Asia, and over other parts of the Indian Ocean where the plane’s final satellite transmissions suggested it might have been at 8:11 a.m. on the morning of March 8. |
| Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished from civilian radar at 1:21 a.m. on March 8, not long after setting off from Kuala Lumpur on its way to Beijing. It then did a U-turn and headed west back across the Malaysian peninsula, before vanishing from Malaysian military radar at 2:11 a.m. in the northern end of the Strait of Malacca. | Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished from civilian radar at 1:21 a.m. on March 8, not long after setting off from Kuala Lumpur on its way to Beijing. It then did a U-turn and headed west back across the Malaysian peninsula, before vanishing from Malaysian military radar at 2:11 a.m. in the northern end of the Strait of Malacca. |
| The Malaysians running the investigations say they believe the flight must have been deliberately flown off course, either by one of its pilots or by hijackers, but have not ruled some kind of catastrophic mechanic failure. | The Malaysians running the investigations say they believe the flight must have been deliberately flown off course, either by one of its pilots or by hijackers, but have not ruled some kind of catastrophic mechanic failure. |