New satellite images raise hopes in search for missing jet

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  AP Japanese Commander Hidetsugu Iwamasa, centre, speaks to the media after his P-3C Orion from Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force arrived at Royal Australian Air Force Pearce Base in Perth on Sunday, to help with search operations for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.

 
AP A Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orion takes off to join the search for the missing Malaysian jet in Perth on Sunday.

A French satellite provided new images of potential debris from a missing Malaysian passenger jet in the southern Indian Ocean as Australian officials on Sunday expressed “increasing hope” that remnants of the plane would be found in the area.

France sent the satellite images on Sunday and they were forwarded to Australia, which is leading the southern Indian Ocean search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, Malaysia’s Transport Ministry said.

The images were of “potential objects,” the Ministry said without being specific.

Although a fourth day of searching in the area yielded no confirmed evidence of the plane, Australian officials expressed optimism that clues would be found in the March 8 disappearance of the Boeing 777.

The French images followed on the heels of two other satellite sightings of potential debris.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott spoke of “very credible leads” and said there was “increasing hope... that we might be on the road to discovering what did happen.” Spirits were buoyed by an image of a large object, 22.5 metres by 13 metres, captured in the area by a Chinese satellite on Tuesday, two days after the initial satellite images were broadcast. The separate sightings were in relatively close proximity.

A search plane on Sunday also spotted “several small objects of interest,” including a wooden pallet and different coloured straps, officials leading the search said.

“It’s a possible lead,” Australian Maritime Safety Authority official Mike Barton said in Canberra. “We’ve gone back to that area today to try and refind it. It’s a possible lead.” Two Chinese aircraft and two from Japan joined the international force of ships and planes searching an area 2,500 kilometres south-west of Perth.

Two patches of ocean are being searched with a combined area of 59,000 sq. km more than two weeks after the plane with 239 people on board vanished from radar while it was on a flight that was to take it from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The search zones have been expanded extensively as no debris has been turned up and the mystery surrounding the plane’s fate has deepened.

The object photographed last week by the Chinese satellite was about 120 kilometres from where the first images of possible debris from Flight MH370 were taken.

Australia’s HMAS Success is already in the search area, and Chinese, British and more Australian naval vessels were en route.

Two merchant ships had also been taking part in the search on requests by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, but one was released as more vessels arrived in the area.

The Hoegh St Petersburg, a Norwegian cargo vessel transporting cars, is now bound for Melbourne, its original destination, its owner, Hoegh Autoliners, said.