Malaysian Airlines Flight 370: Australian Satellites Locate More Objects, HMAS Success Attempts to Recover Items
More objects have been spotted by Australian satellites floating on the Indian Ocean, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced on Monday. His disclosure came after two objects were photographed by the Australian satellites on Thursday and similar items were likewise captured separately by Chinese satellites.
The objects, once retrieved and examined, could be key evidence to bolster the theory that the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777, missing for more than two weeks with 239 passengers and crew aboard, crashed into the Indian Ocean and its debris are scattered on the vast body of water.
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This spread of debris is called the oceanic equivalent of the Butterfly Effect, explained The Sydney Morning Herald, wherein two identical things dropped in the ocean could be floating hundreds of kilometers away from each other in just a few days.
Dr Erik van Sebille, oceanographer at the University of New South Wales, cited the case of buoys with global positioning system dropped in the Indian Ocean. After three months, the two buoys were over 1,000 kilometres apart, drifting at about 100 kilometres a day.
Mr Abbott described the first object as grey or green and circular, and the second object as orange and rectangular. The Australian vessel HMAS Success is on the area and is trying to locate and recover the objects.
The PM added that a U.S. Navy Poseidon, a second Royal Australian Air Force Orion and a Japanese Orion are also on the way to help look for these objects, while other ships and planes continue the search.
The U.S. Navy will be deploying a black box locator to the area in case the objects would confirm it is debris from the ill-fated Flight 370.
Although he admits the objects could turn out to be just flotsam, he said "we owe it to the families of those on board, we owe it to the loved ones of those on board, we owe it to all the people concerned about the fate of this aircraft, to do whatever we reasonable can to find anything that is out there."
