Chinese aircraft spots new floating objects in search of MH370

Photo taken on April 5, 2014 shows a piece of white floating object spotted by Chinese air force in the southern Indian Ocean. A Chinese air force plane searching for missing Malaysian passenger jet MH370 spotted a number of white floating objects in the search area Saturday. The plane photographed the objects over a period of 20 minutes after spotting them at 11:05 local time. (Xinhua/Huang Shubo)

White floating objects were spotted Saturday by a Chinese military aircraft in remote southern Indian Ocean west of Perth, Chinese military sources said.[Special coverage]

The crew of a Chinese Ilyushin IL-76 plane spotted numerous white floating objects in about 20 minutes starting from 11:05 local time and took pictures of them.

The Chinese plane took off at 06:04 local time Saturday morning and reached the search area some 2,700 km off the coast of Perth at 09:55 a.m. local time.

A Chinese plane had spotted suspicious objects in south Indian Ocean on March 24, which were later found unrelated to the missing flight MH370.

High waves and strong winds hampered the hunt of the Chinese plane.

The findings have been reported to Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Center (JACC) coordinating the operation after the plane returned to Perth at 14:20 local time.

Up to 10 military planes, three civil jets and 11 ships have been mobilized on Saturday for an area of about 217,000 square km, 1,700 km northwest of Perth.

Australian ADV Ocean Shield equipped with a U.S.-supplied pinger-locater and British oceanographic vessel HMS Echo continued scouring beneath water along a single 240-km track.

Flight MH370 vanished from civilian radar screens less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing with 239 people on board on March 8.

No confirmed sighting of the jet has been made since and there is no clue what went wrong.