Malaysia authorities tonight reported that an Airbus Defense satellite imaged last Sunday 23 March 122 objects potentially related to the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 and that the photos were forwarded to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority yesterday.
The acting transport minister and minister of defence Hishammuddin Hussein said the objects, found over a wide area, ranged from one metre across to as large as 23 metres, and that some of them appeared bright, suggesting they were solid.
The minister emphasised that it was not known if any of the objects were in fact debris from the lost Boeing 777-200ER that took off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing on 8 March.
However he displayed a montage of photos (which will be distributed shortly) showing the objects seen through breaks in the clouds, as well as a catalogue ranking the objects by size and precise coordinates.
Hishammuddin Hussein said it was imperative to link those objects to the lost aircraft which was carrying 239 people or discount them, so that the search could move to the next more focused stage in recovering aircraft parts and determining the likely location of its black box voice and data recorders.
He said the Airbus Defense images located the fields of debris near sightings of potential objects made by an Australian Orion and a Chinese IL-76 on Monday.
The minister said an expanded working party was attempting to further refine the Inmarsat satellite data which made it clear that MH370 flew south into the southern Indian Ocean 2500 kilometres or more from Perth where it ran out of fuel and crashed some time after it had been airborne for seven hours 31 minutes.
He was not asked to comment further on the disclosure last night that the Inmarsat that was picking up standby electronic traces of MH370 broadcast by its disabled ACARS or automated data reporting system also heard an incomplete signal from the jet seven hours 39 minutes after it had left KL.
Questions asked about the state of mind or fitness to fly of MH370′s captain were brushed aside.
Tonight’s briefing was the briefest yet.
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