Satellites monitoring the southern Indian Ocean for debris from Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have located an area containing more than 100 objects.
Identified on 23 March the field, around 400km2, contains 122 items – some of them up to 23m in size, others around 1m.
“It must be emphasised that we cannot tell whether the potential objects are from MH370,” said acting Malaysian transport minister Hishammuddin Hussein, during a briefing on 26 March.
“Some of the objects appeared to be bright, possibly indicating solid materials.”
The area lies 2,557km west of Perth – from where the search operation for MH370 is being co-ordinated – and in close proximity to regions in which previous sightings have been reported by Australian and Chinese personnel.
Hishammuddin said the new images from the region were sourced from Airbus Defence & Space, and sent to the Malaysian Remote Sensing Agency.
“This is another new lead that will help direct the search operation,” he added. The search has been hampered by weather conditions but the satellites have been able to photograph the ocean surface through gaps in cloud.
Several aircraft and vessels, from various countries, remain engaged in the search for the missing Boeing 777-200ER which vanished while en route to Beijing on 8 March.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
