Australian agency believes it can locate MH370 with 'unprecedented precision'

[RISING SUN]

Australian agency believes it can locate MH370 with 'unprecedented precision'
Australia's main scientific agency said on Wednesday it believed with "unprecedented precision and certainty" that a missing Malaysia Airlines aircraft crashed into the sea northeast of an area scoured in a fruitless two-year underwater search.

The agency's assertion is based on satellite pictures taken two weeks after Flight MH370 went missing on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board, on a flight to Beijing from the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur.

But the Australian government rejected the conclusion of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), issued in a report on Wednesday, saying it was not specific enough.

The disappearance of the Boeing 777 has become one of the world's greatest aviation mysteries. It is thought to have been diverted thousands of miles off course out over the southern Indian Ocean before crashing off the coast of Western Australia.

Australia, Malaysia and China called off a A$200 million ($160 million), two-year search for the plane in January after finding nothing, despite the protests of families of those onboard.

The CSIRO has previously raised doubts about the main 120,000-sq-km underwater search zone, saying it believed the plane went down to the north of it.

Its latest assertion was its most insistent yet and was based on a review of satellite images provided by the French military intelligence service and France's national space agency, CNES, which showed 70 pieces of debris with a dozen of those "probably" man-made.

"We think it is possible to identify a most-likely location of the aircraft, with unprecedented precision and certainty," the CSIRO said.

CSIRO oceanographer and the report's lead author, David Griffin, told Reuters by telephone that if the debris spotted in the pictures was authentic, then it supported previous ocean-drift analysis pointing to a crash zone just to the north of the area that was most thoroughly searched.

"It all fits together so perfectly, the only thing missing is proof that those actually are pieces of plane," Griffin said.
Australia has not ruled out resuming the search for the airliner but has said that would depend on finding credible evidence about the plane's whereabouts.

Australian transport minister Darren Chester said the new analysis "does not provide new evidence leading to a specific location of MH370".

Malaysia's deputy transport minister Aziz Kaprawi declined to comment on the agency's report, saying that he was awaiting further information from Australian authorities.

But he said Malaysia has not given up on the search and it had called for a meeting with Australian and Chinese authorities to discuss an offer from a private seabed exploration firm, Ocean Infinity, to resume the search.

"No decision has been made but we are definitely considering a new search. We will seek input from our counterparts," he told Reuters.

Malaysia said this month Ocean Infinity had offered to search for free, and would seek payment only if the aircraft was found. A company spokesman declined to comment.

The company says on its website it has the world's most advanced fleet of autonomous underwater vehicles for seabed mapping, survey and search.

Australia and Malaysia earlier rejected investigators' recommendations to extend the hunt by 25,000 sq km (9,653 square miles) north of the original search area, saying the location identified was too imprecise.

Investigators believe someone may have deliberately switched off MH370's transponder before diverting it over the Indian Ocean.

Various pieces of debris have been collected from Indian Ocean islands and Africa's east coast and at least three of them have been confirmed as coming from the missing plane.

CSIRO said some of objects spotted in the pictures were "comparable with some of the debris items that have washed up on African beaches".
http://in.reuters.com/article/india-china-idINKCN1AV29J

 

[RISING SUN]

Scientists potentially narrow MH370 search to 3 spots in southern Indian Ocean
Scientists have potentially narrowed the search area for the missing Malaysian airliner to three specific locations in the southern Indian Ocean, through new satellite and drift analysis of the 2014 crash released Wednesday.

But the Australian Transport Safety Bureau cautioned that the drift analysis by Australian science agency CSIRO is based on French satellite images of “probably man-made” floating objects without evidence that they were from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

But the locations could provide potential starting points to search within a 25,000-square-kilometer (9,700-square-mile) expanse identified by a panel of experts in November as the most likely resting place of the Boeing 777 and the 239 passengers and crew on board.

That expanse adjoins the original search zone far southwest of Australia that was identified through satellite analysis of the final hours of the flight that apparently ended when the plane ran out of fuel.

Malaysia, China and Australia agreed to suspend the deep-sea sonar search in January after 120,000 square kilometers (46,000 square miles) of seabed were combed without finding any trace of Flight 370.

The new analysis is based on French military satellite images gathered on March 23, 2014 — two weeks after Flight 370 mysteriously veered far off course during a flight by Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing and were taken near the original underwater search zone.

The Australian bureau took over the search for Flight 370 from Malaysia a week later. Satellite experts at Geoscience Australia were not asked to analyze the images until March this year. The experts concluded that a dozen objects appeared to be man-made.

The CSIRO then investigated where the objects might have originated before drifting for two weeks. The CSIRO identified three potential crash sites — 35.6 degrees S, 92.8 degrees E; 34.7 degrees S, 92.6 degrees E and 35.3 degrees S, 91.8 degrees E.

“So that is a way of potentially narrowing down the search area with the very important caveat that, of course, we can’t be totally sure that those objects seen in the images are actual pieces of plane,” CSIRO oceanographer David Griffin said.

“This might be a really good clue. It might be a red herring. But if you are going to search, then you’d be silly to ignore this potential clue,” he added.

The Australian bureau’s Chief Commissioner Greg Hood said in a statement: “Clearly we must be cautious” of the lack a definite link to Flight 370.

Malaysia, China and Australia have decided that the search will remain suspended unless new evidence pinpoints the wreckage’s whereabouts.

But seabed exploration company Ocean Infinity, based in Houston, Texas, said last week it has offered to launch a private search for the Malaysian-registered airliner.

Voice370, a support group for victim’s families, said under the terms of the offer made to Malaysia in April, Ocean Infinity “would like to be paid a reward if and only if it finds the main debris field.” They urge Malaysia to accept the offer.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/world...ndian-ocean/story-SKY8GECePmfGqD1xhRLaCK.html