China's satellite has spotted a large object, possibly related to the missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) MH370 at the southern corridor on March 18.
The State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (Sastind) stated that the object was captured by the high-definition earth observation satellite, "Gaofen-1", at about 12am on March 18 (Beijing Time).
The imagery spotted the object at 44 degrees, 57 minutes south latitude, and 90 degrees, 13 minutes east longitude, in the southern Indian Ocean, said Sastind, as quoted by Xinuanet.com, the Chinese national news agency website Saturday night.
It also quoted China Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei saying that China had informed Malaysia and Australia soon after its satellite spotted the object, measuring 22-meter-long and 13-meter-wide, in the southern Indian Ocean.
"China hopes that these data will be helpful for searching and rescuing efforts," said Hong.
Hong said further analysis and verification were needed on whether the suspicious floating object was related to the missing MAS aircraft.
He said China's sea and air search-and-rescue forces were heading for the southern Indian Ocean.
"China will continue to cooperate closely with parties concerned and share information with them, so as to make an all-out effort to the search and rescue work", he said.
The location of the suspicious object is along the southern corridor the missing flight MH370 might have taken, and about 120 km south by west from the location of a suspicious object an Australia satellite had found before, it added.
Meanwhile, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA), in a statement on Saturday, said that it will take into account the information on the finding of the object by China's satellite in its Sunday search plans.
It said China has provided the satellite image of the object to Australia on Saturday evening.
"AMSA has plotted the position and it falls within Saturday’s search area. The object was not sighted on Saturday," it said.
It said the search will resume Sunday, and further attempts will be made to establish whether the objects sighted are related to MH370.
It said the Royal Australian Navy’s HMAS Success has arrived in the search area, and two merchant ships are also in the search area.
On Saturday’s search activities, it said a civil aircraft tasked by AMSA reported sighting a number of small objects with the naked eye, including a wooden pallet, within a radius of five kilometres.
However, a Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) P3 Orion aircraft with specialist electro-optic observation equipment diverted to the location, reported sighting clumps of seaweed.
"The RNZAF Orion dropped a datum marker buoy to track the movement of the material. A merchant ship in the area has been tasked to relocate and seek to identify the material," it said.
AMSA said the search area experienced good weather conditions on Saturday with visibility of around 10 kilometres and moderate seas.
The Royal Australian Air Force, the Royal New Zealand Air Force, two chartered civil aircraft and two merchant ships supported Saturday’s search effort in a 36,000 square kilometre search area in the Australian Search and Rescue Region.
It said since AMSA assumed coordination of the search on Monday, 15 sorties have been flown and more than 150 hours of air time has been committed by the air crews to the task.
Four military aircraft assisted in today’s search, as well as two ultra-long range jets.
Ten State Emergency Service (SES) volunteers from Western Australia were tasked as air observers on Saturday, along with two AMSA mission coordinators on the civilian aircraft.
AMSA runs a training program across the country to train SES volunteers in air observation for land and sea searches.
Bernama
Sat Mar 22 2014
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