MH370 lost in Southern Indian Ocean

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March 24, 2014

The Malaysian Prime Minster Najib Razak announced at 2pm (GMT) that Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 with 239 and passengers and crew aboard ended its flight in the Southern Indian Ocean southwest of Perth, Western Australia.
In a sombre and emotion charged announcement Mr Razak said that Immarsat the British based satellite company working with the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch had used new analysis techniques and determined “beyond doubt” that MH370 had been lost and no-one had survived.
“Therefore it is with deep sadness and regret that according to new data that MH370 ended its flight in the Southern Indian Ocean,” said Mr Razak.
Searches yesterday found more debris thousands of kilometres southwest of Perth which is expected to be confirmed as coming from Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 which disappeared 18 days ago.
In a day of high drama, two new debris fields were spotted by Australian and Chinese search planes between 2100km and 2500km south-west of Perth in a zone identified by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority based on US and British intelligence.
Earlier Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott told Parliament last night that HMAS Success was in the process of recovering two objects spotted by an RAAF Orion at 11.45am.
The crew aboard the Orion reported seeing “grey or green circular object” and an “orange rectangular object”, Mr Abbott said after emerging from a Cabinet meeting.
He said the objects identified by the RAAF Orion were separate to the objects reported by the Chinese Ilyushin IL-76.
A US Navy P-8A Poseidon aircraft attempted to relocate the objects reported by the Chinese plane but were unable to do so.
The P-8A, a second RAAF P3 Orion and a Japanese P3 Orion were expected to search their designated search areas until about 8pm last night.
The Chinese icebreaker Xue Long is racing to the area where spotters aboard the Chinese IL-76 sighted what they termed “significant suspicious objects”.
MH370, with 239 passengers and crew aboard, vanished 16 days ago on a flight from Kula Lumpur to Beijing.
A Xinhua correspondent aboard the Ilyushin aircraft reported that searchers saw “two relatively big floating objects with many white smaller ones scattered within a radius of several kilometres”.
The Ilyushin was returning to Perth and was at an altitude of 36,000 feet when the debris was spotted. It did not have enough fuel to descend for a closer look.
Two Chinese IL-76s joined the search yesterday and departed Perth Airport at 8.45am and 9.20am as Rescue 801 and 802. They returned mid-afternoon.
The sighting is 2174km south-west of Perth and in the general area of the Chinese satellite% image taken four days ago.
AMSA yesterday launched 10 aircraft to search for MH370.
As well as the two Chinese IL-76s, there were two RAAF P3 Orions, three ultra-long range civil jets, the US Navy P-8A Poseidon and two Japanese P3 Orions.

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