Another satellite has captured images of objects floating in the southern Indian Ocean.
But it will be at least Friday before planes can try to find the materials -- rough weather in the remote spot is once again hindering search efforts.
The images from a Thai satellite show about 300 objects ranging in size from 6 feet (2 meters) to 50 feet (15 meters). When photographed Monday, they were about 125 miles (201 kilometers) away from the spot where a French satellite captured a floating group of objects Sunday.
The find comes after news that a French satellite had seen 122 objects in the same region, and it follows earlier sightings by U.S., Chinese and another French satellite.
Photos: The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
See satellite images of objects in ocean
'Eventually something will come to light'
How Inmarsat found MH370's pathSearch crews have yet to put eyes on, much less recover, any of the objects, and experts warned Thursday against putting too much stock in what the images show.
Stephen Wood, a former CIA analyst and satellite imagery expert, said the satellites could be seeing something as simple as whitecaps, which he said can look deceptively like solid objects.
And CNN aviation analyst Jeff Wise said that while the latest find is "very enticing," the number and size of the objects make him question whether they could be from the plane.
"If you see something floating that's 60 feet across, that could be a big chunk of fuselage," he said. "But if you have 10 pieces that are 60 feet across, that would indicate that they're not from the plane because the plane has only so much stuff in it."
Flight 370 vanished on March 8 with 239 people aboard. Investigators believe the Beijing-bound airliner eventually flew south for hours before going down into a remote patch of southern Indian Ocean.
Weather hinders search again
Australian officials leading the search had to suspend air missions before noon Thursday because of bad weather. Six ships helping in the search are continuing to work, but conditions are poor.
Air crews who went out Thursday were "beaten up" by the rough skies, said Lt. Cmdr. Adam Schantz of the U.S. Navy.
The visibility is almost zero, with clouds reaching down to the surface of the water, and there is severe turbulence and icing, he said.
Early Thursday afternoon, more than 60% of the search area was experiencing a mixture of low visibility, strong thunderstorms and powerful winds, said CNN International meteorologist Pedram Javaheri.
Capt. Allison Norris, commander of the Australian Navy ship HMAS Success -- which is helping look for debris -- said conditions are cold and uncomfortable for searchers.
"We rotate the lookouts through every hour and make sure that they are appropriately dressed to combat the very cold conditions down here," she said.
"The type of wreckage or object that we're looking for is so close to the water line that now radars would not be able to pick it up," she told CNN's Anderson Cooper. "So we are very reliant on lookouts who use binoculars and night vision glasses to scan the horizon and scan the area around the ship while we conduct our search pattern."
Wife grieves for husband missing on MH370
Source: Flight 370 turned, dropped
Flight 370 relative: This is a cover-up
Families told all lives are lostThursday's delay is the second time this week that harsh conditions in the isolated patch of ocean have hampered operations. Search missions were called off Tuesday because of stormy weather.
The forecast from Friday morning through Saturday shows much improved conditions in the search zone, CNN's Javaheri said.
"Scattered clouds should be expected," he said. "But the winds and seas will both calm considerably, giving a rare stretch of generally favorable conditions for this region during this time of year."
'I understand him'
Meanwhile, the youngest son of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah has broken his family's silence on the plane's disappearance, rejecting speculation that the veteran aviator was somehow responsible.
"I've read everything online. But I've ignored all the speculation. I know my father better," Ahmad Seth Zaharie, 26, said in an interview published Thursday by the New Straits Times, an English-language Malaysian newspaper.
The idea that Zaharie or co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid were responsible for the plane's baffling disappearance is one of many theories investigators continue to pursue.
One line of speculation suggests Zaharie might have hijacked the plane as a political act. He has been identified as a supporter of a high-profile Malaysian opposition figure.
His son rejected such theories.
"We may not be as close, as he travels so much. But I understand him," Ahmad Zaharie said of his father in the interview, which was conducted Tuesday.
Comments from government officials on the investigation so far support the son's view.
A senior Malaysian government official Wednesday told CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes that authorities have found nothing in 19 days of investigating the two pilots that leads them to any motive, be it political, suicidal or extremist.
And an ongoing FBI review of the two pilots' hard drives, including one in a flight simulator Zaharie had built at his home, has not turned up a "smoking gun," a U.S. official with knowledge of the investigation told CNN.
"They have accessed the data," the official said. "There is nothing that's jumping out and grabbing us right now."
And investigators haven't found anything suspicious with any of the other crew members or passengers, leaving them struggling to find an explanation.
"I don't think there is a prevailing theory," one U.S. official told CNN. "There are counterarguments to every theory right now."
No comments:
Post a Comment