France also sights 'objects' in Indian Ocean

A third country has come forward with satellite images of objects in the Indian Ocean which might be related to the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.

 

The images by France further strengthens theories that the plane could be in what is now known as the "southern corridor", which stretches from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.

 

"This morning, Malaysia received new satellite images from the French authorities showing potential objects in the vicinity of the southern corridor.

 

"Malaysia immediately relayed these images to the Australian rescue co-ordination centre," the Malaysian Transport Ministry confirmed in a statement this evening.

However, the ministry did not give any other details on the satellite images.
 

Two other countries which had released satellite images of potential objects are Australia and China.

However, search teams have been unable to locate the objects.

A Malaysian official involved in the search mission said the French image was captured Friday and was about 930 kilometres north from where the Chinese and Australian objects were seen, theAssociated Press reported later today.

The official, who declined to be named because he isn't authorised to speak to the media, said one of the objects was estimated to be about the same size as an object captured on Tuesday by the Chinese satellite that appeared to be 22 metres by 13 metres.

However, according to the news agency, the official said the French satellite image was fuzzy and very unclear, making it difficult to determine the exact dimensions.

Andrea Hayward-Maher, a spokeswoman for the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (Amsa), confirmed that Australia had received the images, but had no further details.

Hampered by bad weather

There was no daily press briefing by the Malaysian authorities today, the first time since MH370 went missing on March 8.

Instead, a statement updating on the ongoing search was issued.

It said the search in the Indian Ocean yielded no results as of 2.30pm, while bad weather also hampered the operation as additional aircraft could not make the journey to Australia.

"A number of other sorties from Subang airport to the southern corridor were cancelled today due to bad weather caused by tropical cyclone Gillian," it said.

The Transport Ministry statement said today it also manage to hold a six-hour briefing with relatives of Chinese passengers on Flight MH370 in Beijing after a heated meeting yesterday where family members charged at Malaysian officials.

While much attention is now focussed on the Indian Ocean, the search operation is also ongoing in the northern corridor which covers from the northern Thai border to the borders of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

A total of 26 countries are involved in the search in both corridors.