Newly Detected Objects Draw Searchers for Malaysian Plane

International New York Times | 20 March 2014

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SYDNEY, Australia — The Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, announced on Thursday that satellite imagery had detected objects that might be connected to the missing Malaysia Airlines jet that vanished on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8.

“The Australian Maritime Safety Authority has received information based on satellite information of objects possibly related to the search,” Mr. Abbott said. “Following specialist analysis of this satellite imagery, two possible objects related to the search have been identified.”

Mr. Abbott said an Australian Air Force Orion plane had been diverted to the area and was expected to arrive later on Thursday. “Three more aircraft will follow,” Mr. Abbott said. The prime minister added that he had informed Malaysia’s prime minister, Najib Razak, of the developments.

He also cautioned that “we must keep in mind the task of locating these objects will be extremely difficult, and it may turn out that they are not related to the search” for Flight 370.

A handout picture made available on Thursday by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority shows a map of the search area for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Credit Australian Maritime Safety Authority, via European Pressphoto Agency

An Australian official said the objects were about 2,500 kilometers, or about 1,550 miles, southwest of Perth, The Associated Press reported.

After Mr. Abbott made his statement, Mr. Najib also issued a statement, saying that the two leaders had spoken about the sighting. But after nearly two weeks of almost daily hopes that brightened and then dimmed, Mr. Najib urged caution.

“Australian officials have yet to establish whether these objects are indeed related” to the missing plane, he said in the emailed statement.

Lisa Martin, a spokeswoman for the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, said: “There is imagery that suggests that there could be an object. At this stage it is an object in the southern part of the search area.

“There are no details; it is literally an object,” Ms. Martin added. “It is based on satellite imagery. There is a plane en route to the area.”

John Young, general manager of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, said at a news conference in Canberra on Thursday that ships were headed toward the objects in the Indian Ocean in the search for the missing jet. Credit Stefan Postles/Getty Images

It was not immediately clear why her agency said there was only one object when Mr. Abbott said there were two.

Cmdr. William J. Marks, the spokesman for the United States Navy Seventh Fleet, which has helped oversee the American military contribution to the search for the missing plane, said in a brief email on Thursday that he had not heard word of finding any objects possibly from the aircraft.

On Wednesday, Commander Marks said, “If suspect debris were spotted, the aircraft would more than likely use the EO/IR camera at close range to identify exactly what was detected.” He was referring to a camera with electro-optical and infrared functions that can discern objects much more sharply than a naked human eye. The aircraft, he added, “could provide the necessary information to lead salvage ships to the wreckage.”

As the possible break in what had been a fruitless search was being pursued, the Malaysian authorities were seeking help from the F.B.I. to help retrieve deleted computer data from a homemade flight simulator belonging to the captain of the Malaysia Airlines jet that vanished 11 days ago, their first request for high-level American assistance in solving the mystery of the missing plane.

Malaysian and American investigators are homing in on the pilot, Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, and his first officer, Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27, though they have not excluded different possibilities.

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“It’s all focused on the pilots,” said a senior American law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid jeopardizing his access to information about the investigation. “We, and they, have done everything we could on the passengers and haven’t found a thing.”

The F.B.I. will relay the contents of the simulator’s hard drive to agents and analysts in the United States who specialize in retrieving deleted computer files.

“Right now, it’s the best chance we have of finding something,” the law enforcement official said. Unless the pilot used very sophisticated technology to erase files, he added, the F.B.I. will most likely be able to recover them.

More than two dozen nations are searching for any trace of the missing airliner, a challenge that has seemed to grow more complicated and more contentious with each passing day.

As the geographic scope of the search has widened, Australia as well as China, India, France, the United States and other nations have offered naval ships, surveillance planes, satellites and experts to Malaysia, which is leading the effort. The investigators face a formidable set of mechanical, avionic and satellite communication puzzles.

Flight 370 was about 40 minutes into a six-hour trip to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, early on March 8 when it suddenly stopped communicating with air traffic controllers and turned far off course, cutting back across peninsular Malaysia, over the Strait of Malacca and toward the Indian Ocean. Military radar tracked it for a while, but the operators did not seek to identify the plane or alert anyone. A satellite over the ocean picked up automated signals for several more hours — facts not released publicly for days after the plane vanished.

The satellite “pings” led investigators to conclude that the plane had made its way to some point along one of two long, arcing corridors that together embrace 2.24 million square nautical miles of sea and land.

On Wednesday, protesters who said they represented families of missing Chinese passengers raged against the confusion and missteps that have dogged the search effort. In the same hotel meeting room where Malaysian officials have tried each day to maintain a tone of calm resolve while briefing reporters, several protesters unfurled a banner that read: “We oppose the Malaysian government concealing the truth. Delaying time for saving lives.”

“All our feelings are the same: We demand to know the truth,” said Xu Dengwang, one of the protesters. Security guards soon ejected them from the room.

Investigators have said the plane’s extraordinary diversion from its intended course was probably carried out by someone who had aviation experience. The Malaysian police, who found that Mr. Zaharie had built a flight simulator at his home, said Wednesday that some data had been erased from the simulator on Feb. 3, more than a month before the ill-fated flight.

Evidence suggests that whoever diverted the plane knew how to disable its communications systems and program course changes, and the data recorded in the pilot’s flight simulator may shed light on whether he was involved. But building and using flight simulators at home is a popular hobby among aviation enthusiasts, and the deletion of data from Mr. Zaharie’s simulator may have been routine housekeeping. Mr. Zaharie did not keep his simulator a secret: He posted a video on YouTube more than a year ago showing him sitting in front of it.

The computer search could reveal impulses or plans linked to the plane’s disappearance. But the investigators could also conclude that Mr. Zaharie deleted files just as the average person does to clean out a computer.

Michelle Innis reported from Sydney, Australia, and Chris Buckley from Sepang, Malyasia. Reporting was contributed by Kirk Semple from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Michael S. Schmidt and Eric Schmitt from Washington; and Mike McIntire from New York.