They are the most tantalizing clues yet: 122 objects spotted by a French satellite, floating in the turbulent Indian Ocean where officials believe the missing Malaysian jetliner went down. But bad weather, the passage of time and the sheer remoteness of their location kept answers out of the searchers’ grasp Wednesday.
Nineteen days into the mystery of Flight 370, the discovery of the objects that ranged in size from 3 feet to 75 feet offered “the most credible lead that we have,” a top Malaysian official said.
With clouds briefly thinning in a stretch of ocean known for dangerous weather, aircraft and ships from six countries combed the waters more than 1,500 miles southwest of the Australian coast. Crews saw only three objects, one of them blue and two others that appeared to be rope.
Limited by fuel and distance, they turned back for the night.
Forecasters warned that the weather is likely to deteriorate again Thursday, possibly jeopardizing the search for the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 that vanished early March 8 after making an unexplained detour from its Kuala Lumpur-to- Beijing path.
With the search in motion, Malaysian officials again sought to assuage the angry relatives of 153 Chinese citizens among the flight’s 239 passengers and crew. But Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein also expressed exasperation, saying Chinese families “must also understand that we in Malaysia also lost our loved ones,” as did “so many other nations.”
The latest satellite images, captured Sunday, are the first to suggest a debris field from the plane, rather than just isolated objects. The items were spotted in roughly the same area as other objects previously seen by Australian and Chinese satellites.
Clouds obscured the latest satellite images, but dozens of objects could be seen in the gaps. At a news conference in Kuala Lumpur, Hishammuddin said some of them “appeared to be bright, possibly indicating solid materials.”
If the objects are confirmed to be from the flight, “then we can move on to deep sea surveillance search and rescue, hopefully, hoping against hope,” Hishammuddin said.
But experts cautioned that the area’s frequent high seas and bad weather and its distance from land complicated an already-trying search.
“We’re facing an extremely challenging environment, and ‘unprecedented’ is an overused word that in this case applies,” said John Cox, a former airline pilot and accident investigator who is now president and CEO of Safety Operating Systems, an aviation safety consultancy.
Twelve planes and five ships from the U.S., China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand are participating in the search.
“We’re throwing everything we have at this search,” said Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott. “We will do what we can to solve this riddle.”
Malaysia has been criticized over its handling of one of the most perplexing mysteries in aviation history. Much of the most strident criticism has come from relatives of the Chinese passengers, some of whom expressed outrage that Malaysia, based on satellite data, concluded the plane had crashed in th ocean and essentially declared their loved ones dead without recovering a single piece of wreckage. Adding to their anguish: Unconfirmed reports Wednesday quoting an unnamed investigator saying that the flight’s pilot, Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah, had deliberately taken the plane off course.
At a hotel banquet room in Beijing on Wednesday, a delegation of Malaysian government and airline officials explained what they knew to the relatives. They were met with skepticism and even ridicule. One man later said he wanted to pummel everyone in the Malaysian delegation.
“We still have hope, but it is tiny, tiny,” said Ma Xuemei, whose niece was on the flight. “All the information has been confusing and unreliable.”
Investigators said they have ruled out nothing — including mechanical or electrical failure, hijacking, sabotage, terrorism or issues related to the mental health of the pilots or someone else on board.
The answers, if any, may be contained in the plane’s data and voice recorders under thousands of feet of water. The batteries on the recorders’ “pingers” are designed to last 30 days. .
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority, which is coordinating the southern search operation, said a U.S. pinger locator arrived in Perth along with a Bluefin-21 underwater drone. The equipment will be fitted to the Australian navy ship the Ocean Shield, but AMSA could not say when they would be deployed.
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