MALAYSIA DENIED THAT the hunt for a missing jet was in disarray after the search veered far from the plane’s planned route and China said that conflicting information about its course was “pretty chaotic”.
CNN is now reporting that a Chinese satellite “observed a suspected crash area at sea”, according to a Chinese news agency.
It says the images date back to 9 March, the day after the plane went missing, but weren’t released until today. They show three suspected floating images.
Oil slicks that were previously thought to be related to a possible crash site have already been discounted in the past few days.
Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said today that Malaysia would “never give up hope” of finding the plane’s 239 passengers and crew, dismissing allegations that efforts were mired in confusion after a series of false alarms, rumours and contradictory statements.
“I don’t think so. It’s far from it. It’s only confusion if you want it to be seen as confusion,” he said at a press conference where military and civilian officials faced a grilling from a combative crowd of journalists.
I think it’s not a matter of chaos. There are a lot of speculations (sic) that we have answered in the last few days.
The hunt for Malaysia Airlines flight 370 now encompasses nearly 27,000 nautical miles (over 90,000 square kilometres) — roughly the size of Portugal — and involves the navies and air forces of multiple nations.
Sand artist Sudarshan Pattnaik creates a sculpture depicting the missing Malaysian Airlines aircraft on the beach in Puri, India. Pic: AP Photo
The search focus had been on an area off Vietnam's South China Sea coast, where the Boeing 777 last made contact Saturday on a journey from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
But Malaysian authorities said they were expanding it to the Andaman Sea, north of Indonesia, hundreds of miles away.
"So right now there is a lot of information, and it's pretty chaotic, so up to this point we too have had difficulty confirming whether it is accurate or not," China's foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said of accounts of the jet's course.
There were 153 Chinese nationals on the flight.
India's coastguard joined the aerial search off the remote Andaman and Nicobar Islands Wednesday and the Indian Air Force was put on standby.
'Alright, good night'
Malaysian air force chief General Rodzali Daud attempted to explain why the search zone had been expanded, telling the press conference that military radar detected an unidentified object early Saturday north of the Malacca Strait off Malaysia's west coast.
He said that the reading, taken less than an hour after the plane lost contact over the South China Sea, was still being investigated and they were not able to confirm it was MH370.
The confusion has fuelled perceptions that Malaysian authorities are unable to handle a crisis on this scale, and infuriated relatives.
Analysts said there were burning questions over what information -- if any -- Malaysia has gleaned from both military and civilian radar, and the plane's transponders, and over discounted reports it was later detected near Indonesia.
"There are so many information sources that do not appear to have been used effectively in this case. As a result, the families of the missing passengers and crew are being kept in the dark," said David Learmount, operations and safety editor at industry magazine Flightglobal.
One new detail did emerge: the words of MH370's final radio transmission.
Malaysia's ambassador to China, Iskandar Sarudin, said one of the pilots said "alright, good night" as the flight switched from Malaysian to Vietnamese airspace, according to Singapore's Straits Times newspaper.
'Cracking and corrosion'
Months before the Malaysia Airlines jet vanished, US regulators had warned of a "cracking and corrosion" problem on Boeing 777s that could lead to a mid-air breakup and drastic drop in cabin pressure.
"We are issuing this AD (Airworthiness Directive) to detect and correct cracking and corrosion in the fuselage skin, which could lead to rapid decompression and loss of structural integrity of the airplane," the Federal Aviation Administration said.
It had circulated a draft of the warning in September, issuing a final directive on March 5, three days before MH370 disappeared.
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