Malaysian airliner search moves toward recovery phase

The search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 took a step closer to a full recovery mission Wednesday with new satellite leads and the arrival in Australia of United States technology to find the aircraft's flight data and cockpit voice recorders.[Special coverage]

The Malaysian government announced Wednesday that analysts studying satellite photos from France had found 122 unidentified objects floating in the southern Indian Ocean more than 2,500 km from the southwest Australia city of Perth.

With less than two weeks before the black box battery is due to expire, ending its locator signal, searchers are in a race against time to calculate a precise search area where the vessel-towed locator should be deployed.

When the search resumed Wednesday after a pause for bad weather the day before, 12 aircraft, seven military and five civil aircraft, from six nations scoured three search areas covering a total of 80,000 square km, up from 68,500 square km from the previous search day on Monday.

Observers on two aircraft searching the southern Indian Ocean for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 on Wednesday spotted further objects floating in the water, Australian maritime search authorities said.

Observers on a civil aircraft spotted two objects, which were thought to be rope, while the crew of a New Zealand air force P3 Orion spotted "a blue object," according to the Twitter feed of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA).

However, none of the objects were seen again on further passes nor were they distinctive of the missing Boeing 777 or objects in the satellite photos.

Final aircraft has left the search area. Nothing further identified after initial sighting of three objects. Positions in the Malaysia Remote Sensing Agency satellite information tweeted on March 26 were within Wednesday's Flight MH370 search areas, according to AMSA.

Four Chinese ships, including the polar supply ship, Xue Long, as well as Australian navy vessel HMAS Success were also in the search areas.

In the state of Western Australia Wednesday, government and community organizations were preparing to welcome families of the 239 people aboard the missing airliner.

Western Australia Premier Colin Barnett said several hundred family members were expected to arrive as the search was being conducted out of the state capital, Perth.

"As a state government, we will assist the government and do all that we can to make them feel welcome, to be respectful of the very sad loss of their family members," he said.

"We will coordinate all that we can to assist them. There may be some sort of memorial service? I'm not even sure about that. We are dealing primarily with the Chinese population, but also many nationalities involved so I expect that to unfold over the next week or so," said Barnett.

The Department of Immigration and Border Protection was working with Malaysian Airlines and counterparts in China to facilitate visa arrangement for family and officials, said a spokesperson for the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection.

"We will be using tourist visas and will be waiving visa fees," the spokesperson said in a statement to Xinhua.

"We are encouraging all relatives involved in flight MH370 to contact their nearest Australian Embassy to arrange visas for travel to Australia."

Legislators from across the political spectrum united in the federal Parliament in Canberra Wednesday to offer condolences to the families of those presumed to have died on Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.