Search for Malaysian airliner tightens up with new Chinese information

An international air search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was making the most of a window of good weather Sunday to hunt for an object spotted in Chinese satellite photos, an Australian expert told Xinhua. [Special coverage]

Conditions over the southern Indian Ocean search site, more than 1,400 km southwest of the Australian city of Perth, were still favorable, but the task was complicated by other factors, said Dr. John Blaxland, senior fellow of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre of the Australian National University in Canberra.

The object, measuring 22 meters by 13 meters, would obviously not be in the area of the photos taken on March 18, but searchers would use information transmitted by data buoys to calculate the ocean currents and set the search area, he said.

"The ocean flows in the area are much greater than in other parts of the world. It's very turbulent and very fast moving," Blaxland said in a phone interview.

"It's a large area because the current flows here are hard to predict. There's still a degree of educated guesswork involved."

However, the addition of more aircraft would allow for a more intensive visual search.

"We've got quite a number of aircraft operating in pretty tight formation over the area. Their flight programming will be informed by data provided by the Chinese analysts," he said.

He said the size and shape of the object in the photos could be consistent with a wing from a Boeing 777 airliner, but it might also be a "container-type object."

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said earlier Sunday that it had plotted the position of the object in the Chinese photos and it had fallen within Saturday's search area, although it was not sighted then.

The Chinese satellite photos were taken two days after American satellite photos that showed another object measuring 24 meters long in waters about 1,400 km southwest of the Australian city of Perth.

The locations of the photos were about 120 km apart.

Two Chinese air force Ilyushin IL-76 cargo planes were due to join Australian and New Zealand air force P3 Orions, as well as two ultra-ling range civil aircraft in the search Sunday.

An AMSA statement said one of the civil aircraft reported Saturday sighting a number of small objects with the naked eye, including a wooden pallet, within a radius of 5 km.

A New Zealand air force P3 Orion aircraft with specialist electro-optic observation equipment was diverted to the location, arriving after the first aircraft left, but only reported sighting clumps of seaweed.