From the Washington Post:
Australia’s prime minister said Thursday that objects related to a missing Malaysia Airlines passenger jet have been possibly spotted in the southern Indian Ocean as a U.S. Navy plane that can search under water was shifted to remote waters 1,800 miles west of that country.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott told the Australian Parliament in Canberra that the objects were spotted on satellite imagery, in what could be a potential break in the 13-day search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. An Australian air force surveillance plane has been diverted to that area in an attempt to locate the objects, the Associated Press reported.
Abbott said that “new and credible information has come to light” in relation to the search for the plane in the southern Indian Ocean and after specialist analysis of satellite imagery, “two possible objects related to the search have been identified.”
But the prime minister added: “The task of locating these objects will be extremely difficult and it may turn out they are not related to the search for MH370.”…
Formal media release [pdf] here.
trollhattan
Let’s hope. The families deserve answers and the rest of us would like some, too.
srv
They should shut up until they’ve recovered the debris.
Amir Khalid
This is an interesting point I hadn’t considered: until it’s known for sure where the plane is, a formal investigation cannot be initiated.
ETA: weather in the current search area is reported to be “moderate” (that must mean it’s not the best) and visibility is poor. It might be a while before they find those objects spotted by the satellite.
? Martin
They’re reporting that two planes are now on the scene (one US, one Aus) and no new reports have come back. Not looking good.
? Martin
And CNN has gone the full Kavuto. “Plane Found?”
Fuck you, CNN.
Villago Delenda Est
@? Martin: BREAKING NEWS
Leslie Blitzer reports that the Balloon Boy is hovering over MH370 debris at this very moment, no matter what his own on-the-air experts say.
Developing!
J.Ty
Why are any of you watching TV news right now? I’m refreshing the Guardian liveblog while watching reruns of Community, it’s much more pleasant.
Elizabelle
When I first heard “Breaking News” out of Perth, Australia, I assumed it would be footage of a grieving Mick Jagger and band boarding the Rolling Stones’ jet to return to the US.
Their plane, with its red-lipped livery, has been sitting on the tarmac in Perth for days.
Charlie Watts played an impromptu jazz drum set at a local club Wednesday.
And the jet may still remain on the runway.
Elizabelle
@J.Ty:
Checking out the Guardian now.
I hope they have found the missing plane, for the families’ and friends’ sake. Closure, but not what they wanted, either.
J.Ty
@Elizabelle: Probably won’t be closure until the ‘why’ and ‘how’ is found, unfortunately… but nailing down the ‘what’ and ‘where’ should be a big help for them.
MikeJ
They saw something floating in the ocean on a satellite picture. Meanwhile, parts of Japan are still washing up on the shores of Washington years after the tsunami. I’ll believe they really have something when they actually recover it.
Who knows, maybe it’s part of the Varig 707 that was lost in the Pacfic in 1979.
Villago Delenda Est
@MikeJ: Heck, it could be something from Skylab. No one knows, but it’s a lead of some sort.
MikeJ
@Villago Delenda Est: I wonder if they’ll ever release the pictures. To have any sort of confidence that it was wreckage and not just random ocean garbage you would need to use a level of zoom not available on commercial sats and they may not want to show their capabilities.
J.Ty
@MikeJ: Guardian’s most recent update (as of this writing) has some pics. Not high-res or anything though…
Villago Delenda Est
@MikeJ: They’ve already hinted that they can indeed resolve the images to that level of detail, but to make it definitive, by releasing photos…well, probably not, as you’ve written.
Elizabelle
@MikeJ:
I hold out hope for Amelia Earhart’s missing airplane!
MSNBC has the big dogs up. Brian Williams on the phone at O dark hundred.
I hope they can figure out what brought this plane down, to make commercial aviation even safer. The 777 is considered to be an extremely safe airliner.
Elizabelle
@MikeJ:
Yeah. Egg on everyone’s face if these are huge shipping containers or other debris that fell off a vessel.
J.Ty
I’m actually terrified of flying and the 777 is my favorite one to fly on. Really hoping it wasn’t a mechanical thing… for selfish reasons obviously. Yikes.
? Martin
@J.Ty: It wasn’t mechanical. That much is all but certain from the chain of events.
J.Ty
@? Martin: I dunno, there was that blog post that everybody loved for 12 hours and then started hating again about the electrical fire…
But yeah, who the hell knows.
taras
this is straight bullshit. I can almost guarantee they are only gonna find whatever the fuck they planted there. This is either a new Bermuda Triangle area or an alien abduction. Watch when they start asking “next of kin” to identify their loved ones’ belongings. The tv cameras will be set to hi def and those people will put on a performance of historical histrionic proportion. Of course, those nok’s will have already received their grief counseling at foggy bottom. I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t, turn this into a terrorist hi-jacking story and then they will claim the (most likely american) heroes on board overwhelmed the terrorists and crashed the plane in the ocean before it could be crashed into a Russian orphanage filled to the brim with little, laughing blonde children
the machine is already creaking into action, this morning matt lauer had breaking news that the pilots had deleted some files from their computer. I’ll bet there’s more than a few child pornographers sitting in prison, prior to face palming, saying, “hold on just a second, you mean we can delete files from our computers.!?”
OGLiberal
@MikeJ: What always drives me crazy about this is that we – Joe/Jane Schmoes – all know that they can resolve these images much better than what they release to the public. Every other government knows that as well…and probably have hard evidence of this. I’m sure the Aussies have some pretty good imagery….Just release the hi-res…nobody will be shocked, nobody will steal your secrets, nobody will use this info to invade.
Or say, “here’s the stuff we can let you see…on the stuff I just looked at I can see Malaysian Airlines markers on the danged thing”,
And if you want to be sensitive to the families until you absolutely confirm – completely understandable – then tell Anderson Cooper to effing wait – don’t release anything – not even low-res garbage.
If you really aren’t sure, then don’t say freaking anything until you confirm either way.
Elizabelle
@? Martin:
Explain, re it wasn’t mechanical? Are you meaning because the plane flew for hours?
But couldn’t there have been an onboard fire?
Not being argumentative; actually having a cocktail, since insomniac tonight, and tired.
OGLiberal
@Elizabelle: Probably still is the safest. Timeline and evidence released point towards an intentional act – difficult to prevent that, especially if it was a member of the crew. Even if the fire on board/depressurization that killed everybody on board scenario is true – and if this “debris” is the plane – that emmer effer flew for 6+ hours without a crew after suffering a failure that killed everybody on board, including the dudes flying the thing – that’s quite a plane if it could do that
J.Ty
@Elizabelle: Modern autopilots are pretty great, but explaining all of the existing info from a single mechanical failure seems pretty hard–not impossible, but it’d require something that hadn’t happened before to happen. Which is also not unheard of.
Elizabelle
@OGLiberal:
Thank you. I can’t tell whether it was an intentional act or not, so do hope they find the wreckage and recorders and eventually solve what can be known of this mystery.
What does OG stand for?
David Koch
MikeJ
Bigger versions of the pics:
http://amsa.gov.au/media/incidents/images/DIGO_00718_01_14.jpg
http://amsa.gov.au/media/incidents/images/DIGO_00718_02_14.jpg
They better have enhanced versions.
BTW, one of those “objects” is 24m long, about 1/3rd the total length of a 777.
J.Ty
“Scores of police and at least 5 ambulances just arrived at hotel where #MH370 families waiting [in beijing]” https://twitter.com/celiahatton/statuses/446548840804397056
OGLiberal
@David Koch: If detectable that “easily”, they’ll get the boxes soon and we’ll find out a lot more about what happened. I do, however, remain skeptical after so many false alarms and conflicting info.
Elizabelle
James Fallows posts briefly re Australians’ possible findings.
He says he hopes not to post again on MH 370 until something more definitive is known, and takes the usual suspects to task for making hay of this tragedy (whatever turns out to be the full story).
Elizabelle
NYTimes from yesterday, before Australian report:
The AF 447 wreckage turned out to be 30 miles from debris sighted five days after its crash.
It’s estimated median ocean currents can carry debris 16 miles a day.
debbie
I’m sure it’s too ordinary for some posters I’ve read here, but I’m thinking this is the answer:
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh370-electrical-fire/
gvg
@debbie: That one has already been overturned. Something about the last radio contact was first officer saying everything fine but it was 12 minutes after plane made turn and 5 after transponder (?) was turned off. Not sure that is exactly right because I am now very confused but it was something like that. Check backwards in some of these threads for a couple of links on it. Yesterday I think.
debbie
@gvg:
Sorry to know that. Between the alien abduction and hiding-plane-for-the-next-911 theories, this one really seemed solid. Thanks.
Andrew
You can most easily tell that this is crap because it was said by Tony Abbott.
Seriously. We don’t get to laugh any more at you guys for having elected George W. Bush. We’ve got our own idiot king now.
DaveInOz
Unfortunately this is more about Tony Abbott than the missing plane. he’s desperate to make a name for himself on the world stage and this announcement was all about getting attention. There’s no reason why an operational person couldn’t have made the announcement.
I hope they find the plane but there’s no certainty that what was seen on the satellite image was wreckage from the missing plane which would have had to remain afloat for 12 days.
On the bright side for Tony Abbott, he has received praise from Rick Santorum!