Chinese Plane Spotted Floating Objects in Australian Seas

A Chinese military airplane in search for the missing Malaysian jetliner spotted several “suspicious” floating white objects Monday in remote seas off Australia, following reports by an Australian crew last weekend of a floating wooden pallet and strapping belts in the icy southern Indian Ocean that was identified by satellites recorded images, reports said.

The Xinhua news agency said one of the two Chinese Ilyushin IL-76 aircraft spotted two “relatively big” floating objects and several smaller white ones scattered over several kilometers.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said it had been advised of the Chinese sighting and will use other aircraft scheduled to search the area on Monday to relocate the objects, report said.

Xinhua news added that China also has deployed its icebreaker Xuelong(Snow Dragon),toward the location where the debris was spotted, along with other Chinese ships that are also making their way south.

Reports said aircraft flying on Monday were focused on searching by sight, instead of radar, which, authorities said, can be tricky to use because of the high seas and wind in the area.

Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss told Australian Broadcasting Corp. Radio before the Chinese report said “It’s a lot of water to look for just perhaps a tiny object.”

Truss said they expect the weather Monday to deteriorate but said they will proceed. “Today we expect the weather to deteriorate and the forecast ahead is not that good, so it’s going to be a challenge, but we will stick at it,” he said.

Reports said Australia was analyzing French radar images showing potential floating debris that were taken some 850 kms (530 miles) north of the said search area. Australia has used a US satellite image of two floating objects to frame its search area.

A Chinese satellite, report said, has also spotted an object floating in the said ocean, estimated at 22 meters long (74ft) and 13 meters (43ft) wide.

Malaysia said it received the images on Sunday and passed them on to Australia, said the report.

Report said it could not be determined easily from the blurred images whether the objects were the same as those detected by the Australian and Chinese search planes, but the Chinese photograph could depict a cluster of smaller objects, said a senior military officer from one of the 26 nations involved in the search.

The wing of a Boeing 777-200ER is approximately 27 metres long and 14 metres wide at its base, according to estimates derived from publicly available scale drawings. Its fuselage is 63.7 metres long by 6.2 metres wide.

NASA reportedly said it would use high-resolution cameras aboard satellites and the International Space Station to look for possible crash sites in the Indian Ocean. NASA spokesman Allard Beutel said they are examining archived images collected by instruments on its Terra and Aqua environmental satellites.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 went missing from civilian radar less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur in route for Beijing with 239 people on board on March 8.

Reports said no confirmed sighting of the plane has been made since the incident and there is no clue on what went wrong.

Over 150 of the passengers on board the missing jet were Chinese.

Source: Gma News Online

Image Credit: www.dw.de