MH370 It is exactly two weeks since Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH370 vanished from radar along with 239 passengers over the Gulf of Thailand.
11.44pm: BBC News Asia quotes an NBC correspondent's tweet: Search for #MH370 has been suspended for day - dark now. Resumes Saturday. Aussie planes plus Japanese and Chinese. US plane is being maintained.
11.20pm: Police have described a report claiming that Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah made a phone call from the cockpit of MH370 prior to take off on March 8 as mere speculation.
Asked to comment on the report published by UK-based daily The Sun , inspector-general of police Khalid Abu Bakar replies in a text message: "This is all speculation."
Read the full story here .
10.55pm: The significance, or otherwise, of the cargo of lithium ion batteries has still to be established but it adds to the long list of questions the investigators are grappling with.
"It (lithium-ion battery) is not dangerous goods per se but in terms (of) they are (being) declared as dangerous goods under the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO)," MAS chief executive officer Ahmad Jauhari Yahya told a daily briefing earlier.
Read the full story here .
10.41pm: BBC quotes the New Zealand Herald 's report that the New Zealand air force crew searching for the missing plane were "very deflated" after they failed to find any wreckage.
7.42pm: Chinese relatives of the passengers on the missing Malaysian jet have changed hotels to make way for crews arriving for the Malaysian grand prix, Reuters reports.
"The Chinese families were here, but they have already left. We are fully booked. There is no space because of Formula One," a woman was quoted as saying.
According to the news agency, Malaysian officials earlier said the families would be put up at another hotel.
6.45pm: The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (Amsa) search operation concludes for the day without any sightings of the two objects, now suspected to have sunk.
In its latest statement, Amsa says the Australian Defence Force, the US Navy, a commercial jet and merchant ships supported today's search effort in a 23,000 square kilometre search area.
The Royal Australian Navy's HMAS Success is en route to the wite while two merchant ships are still in the search area.
6.10pm: Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein's daily press conference ends
5.33pm: The daily press briefing and conference on the status of the MH370 search and rescue operations, led by acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, begins.
Here are some of the highlights:
- Japan is sending several assets to Perth to aid in the search.
Meanwhile, local Chinese media reports that a a college student from Kedah was quizzed by police as Zaharie had allegedly ‘liked’ a number of her Facebook postings.
The student herself takes to the social network site to complain, insisting she does not know the pilot personally and claims police have found that she is not related to the case.
Read the full story here .
4.47pm: Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein will be speaking to US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to request more hydrophone locators to help in detection of 'pings' coming from the MH370 aircraft.
“#MH370 SAR Southern Corridor: We really need ‘Pinger Locator Hyrophones’. Not many countries have them.Will be speaking to Sec Hagel again tonight,” reads the tweet sent out by Hishammuddin earlier today.
4.36pm: Twenty Chinese family members of the passengers, who are in Malaysia, are transferred from Cyberview Hotel in Putrahata to Equatorial Hotel in Bangi today.
Bernama reports that this is due to the fact Cyberview will be accommodating participants of the upcoming Formula 1 Grand Prix.
4.22pm: Australian government now says the objects sighted by satellite, hoped to be linked to MH370, may have sunked to the bottom of the sea.
Read the Reuters report here .
4.07pm: At the briefing by Malaysian officials to families in Beijing, BBC reports that one woman asks "Can we trust the Malaysian government? Can the world trust you?" This is greeted by applause from the families.
3.40pm: Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein says the Malaysian government has yet to receive any “positive corroboration” indicating the two objects sighted by satellite off the Indian Ocean is linked to MH370, Reuters reports.
3.20pm: The Age reports that the “high-level” Malaysian delegation, comprising ministry officials and even a Boeing 777 pilot, sent to China were met with a barage of questions by frustrated family members of passengers on board MH370.
The delegation was dispatched by PM Najib Abdul Razak to meet with the families, who have even threatened a hunger strike due to what they feel is lack of information on the whereabouts of their loved ones and poorly-handled search operations by Malaysian authorities.
3:15pm: AMSA general manager John Young says in the there is yet any sightings of the two objects detected by satellite on Sunday, in the second day of search operations covering 23,000 km area, about 2,500 km (1,550 miles) southwest of Perth.
He says the first Orion airplane reported good weather.
“We have re-planned search to be visual, where aircraft will fly low with highly-skilled observers looking out of the aircraft and looking for objects. We may need more aircraft for the search.
“Today we have five aircraft, including three Orion aircraft, while the US Navy is providing its Poseidon and the New Zealand aircraft. The first aircraft which left earlier is already back, another two are searching there,” he says in a video.
He cautioned that although the area may seem small, several search runs would be required today and tomorrow, while AMSA will try to acquire more satellite imagery.
3.10pm: While a charter of 15 space agencies join the search for MH370, its secretariat member warns that satellite imagery are of limited use when searching the vast area.
"This is a very difficult case. Normally we know what the area of interest is. This is essentially a camera in space, and if you don't know where to point it then it's a big challenge," says International Disasters Charter secretariat member Adina Gillespie, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) .
She explains that the biggest part of the delay in the process is the analysing of the large amount of data collected.
In a separate article, WSJ reports that there will be no quick answers to what had happened on board the aircraft that might have led to its disappearance even when its wreckage is found.
It quotes aviation consultant Mark Martin saying it would take a salvage operation lasting for weeks or even months to find and put pieces of the aircraft together to determine the cause.
Another expert, oceanographer David G Gallo, says it would take a month for robotic submersibles to reach the suspected crash site in the Indian Ocean, and months more to scour its depths for the aircraft with its sonar or high-resolution cameras.
3.05pm: Xinhua tweets that Chinese vessel Haixun 01 is searching the waters near Christmas Island, Australia.
3pm: Indonesia issues 49 flight clearances for aircraft from seven countries to search for missing MH370 plane after the focus of the operation shifted to the Indian Ocean, reports Bernama .
"As the search for the missing MH370 plane has switched to the southern corridor which includes Indonesian territory, we have so far given 49 flight clearances for foreign planes to pass our airspace," the Indonesian Foreign Affairs Ministry is quoted saying in a statement in Jakarta.
The countries involved are Australia, United States, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates.
2.51pm: According to the BBC , AP news agency reports that one of the planes that flew to the suspected debris site off Western Australia has returned without any sightings.
2:07pm: Three Chinese aircraft are en route to a Malaysian air base to aid search efforts, China’s news agency Xinhua posts on Twitter .
According to the BBC , this makes it seven planes from China involved in the operations, now spanning the northern and southern corridors, with extensive focus currently on the southern Indian Ocean.
2.06pm: In a China Press report, DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng ( left ) takes a potshot at political rival MCA chief Liow Tiong Lai's command of English, saying the latter would not have been able to handle the daily press briefings on MH370 if he had been transport minister.
The post of transport minister is customarily given to MCA, however, the party opted to forsake all government posts a result of its terrible showing in GE13.
Hence, Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein now stands in as acting minister.
The party returned the favour, admitting that Liow is not good in using certain terms as well as Lim, such as “you print, I sue”.
Read the story here .
1.45pm: Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott ( right ) defends himself for announcing the debris find captured by satellite in Parliament before visual confirmation that it is indeed from MAS Flight MH370.
"We just don't know, but we owe it to the families and the friends and the loved ones of the almost 240 people on flight MH370 to do everything we can to try to resolve what is as yet an extraordinary riddle.
"Because of the understandable state of anxiety and apprehension that they're in we also owe it to them to give them information as soon as it's to hand.
"I think I was doing that yesterday in the Parliament," he is quoted saying by Sydney Morning Herald over accusations he had "jumped the gun".
Abbott concedes that what he told Parliament could be "credible" and the "best lead" yet, could well turn out to be nothing more than a container that fell off a ship.
1.38pm: Unable to handle the strain due to a sudden heightened interest in the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA), its website has crashed.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that AMSA spokesperson Lisa Martin says the reason its website is inaccessible is because of large visitor traffic, especially by the media.
"Normally there are only 30 people active on it at any one time. Now there are around 1,000 at any one time," she says.
However, the number of AMSA's Twitter account, @AMSA_News, followers have jumped by 10,000 followers literally overnight.
Australian news site news.com.au trains the spotlight on Abbott on whether he jumped the gun when announcing the possible debris find captured by satellite image to Parliament.
12.59pm: Australia's acting prime minister while Tony Abbott is overseas, Warren Truss told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) that the search is "very, very difficult and challenging”.
BBC reports that he told the ABC that weather conditions “are not particularly good” and there is a risk it will worsen.
12.35pm: RAAF's Orian has arrived at the site. Four other planes are on the way, says BBC .
11.05am: The Associated Press (AP) reports that China is sending three warships to join the search efforts of Western Australia, but did not state when these vessels might arrive at the site.
However, AP states that Chinese media report that the ships - the Kunlunshan, the Haikou and the Qiandaohu - were searching near Sumatra off Indonesia, while another, an ice breaker, the Snow Dragon currently in Perth and “might join the search”.
It also reports on a tweet sent by a SBS correspondent that Australian PM Tony Abbott has called Chinese President Xi Jinping to update him on search the operation, saying: "If there us anything down there, we will find it" .
10.40am:
Officials in China have said that icebreaking research ship Xue Long is in Perth and on standby to help with search efforts, BBC reports.10.28am: The plight of the 239 passengers and crew on board missing MAS Flight MH370 have touched many around the globe.
On Monday, Somali graduates from Malaysia organised a prayer for their safe return.
The special prayer, attended by hundreds at the Somta hall in Mogadishu in Somalia, was meant to show support for the families and loved ones awaiting news.
10.15am : British satellite company Immarsat claims they had indicated the MH370 plane may have crashed into the Indian Ocean as early as March 9 or 10.
According to American Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) News consultant Tom Haueter, a former National Transportation Safety Board investigator deems this revelation as very troubling.
“Just thinking of the time wasted and what was ever on the water moving farther away,” he is quoted as saying.
Inmarsat, also tells ABC News that they shared their data with Malaysian investigators on March 12, but it was only three days later that the latter decided to expand the search to the Indian Ocean.
However, Inmarsat spokesperson Chris McLaughlin reportedly told the BBC their information was just "one small piece of data" in the investigations.
"We can't possibly know what other data were in the investigation or what routes the Malaysian government was following."
9:50am: Alain Bouillard, chief investigator for the 2009 Air France Flight 447 disaster, was quoted by Sydney Morning Herald as describing the MH370 investigation as "far, far harder".
He said the Flight 447 probe had more clues as the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (Acars) had sent out 24 messages within a minute but the one on Flight MH370 was mysteriously shut down when it disappeared from civilian radar.
Flight 447 was on the Rio De Janeiro-Paris route when it plunged into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009. Even though the first body was discovered within six days, the plane's black box took two years to recover.
Bouillard added that if the debris spotted by satellite in the Indian Ocean were indeed from MH370, investigators must quickly calculate the reverse drift - that means determining the initial position of where the plane crashed after factoring two weeks of drifting apart.
"Objects that have drifted for two weeks will have travelled a long way in that time," he was quoted as saying.
9.23am: BBC reports that Norwegian vessel Hoegh St Petersburg, which reached the site yesterday, had used searchlights to look for the two objects.
9.00am: UK tabloid The Sun reports that investigators discovered Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah ( right ), the 53-year-old pilot of Flight MH370, had made a phone call from the cockpit before taking off.
It added that investigators are attempting to establish who Zaharie communicated with minutes before the flight took off, hoping to establish leads on why the plane lost communications and diverted away from its destination.
Read full story here .
8.53am: The Colorado-based company that collects imagery for the US government and other countries claims that the sheer number of satellite images had to be shifted through delayed detection of the images of two objects, possibly debris from MH370, floating beneath the surface south of the Indian Ocean.
Reuters reports that according to DigitalGlobe Inc confirms that reports on the images captured on March 16, were delayed due to the large size of the ocean area it has to cover.
Click here for the full report.
8.03am: AMSA reports that a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) P3 Orion aircraft is en route to the search area, having departed at around 6.15am.
On the other aircraft and ships involved:
- A civil Gulfstream jet and a second RAAF P3 Orion is due to depart soon.
8.00am: The Sydney Morning Herald today reports on the apparent reason why Australian authorities are tight-lipped about the source of the debris satellite images.
7.20pm: The New Straits Times reports that the Astronautic Technology Sdn Bhd (ATSB), which comes under the Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry (Mosti) has been instructed to assist in the search mission.
Its Chief Executive Officer Ahmad Sabirin Arshad reportedly says ASTB is studying the imagery obtained from the Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation (AGO).
7.17pm: CNN reports that its meteorologist Chad Myers forcasts " great weather" in the southern Indian Ocean.
“Yesterday the weather was awful. It was just terrible. They didn’t see anything. It was raining, low clouds. They couldn’t get high enough to really get a good perspective,” he says.
7am: The objects in the satellite images could have floated kilometres away by now, reports the Sydney Morning Herald .
It says this comes in the wake of revelations that the satellite images were taken on Sundaywhich experienced “strong and unpredicatable currents in some of the roughest seas in the world”.
6.10am: Australia Network news reports that the search and rescue operation will resume by air at about 7:15am (Malaysian time). One aircraft will leave first from Perth and another two would depart an hour later, followed b the final aircraft an hour later.
This is to maximise the search in the area as each aircraft will arrive about five hours later, search and return to Perth to refuel.
5.50am: The AMSA tweets that the search continues with merchant ships and five aircraft.
One such merchant vessel is the Norwegian car-carrier Hoegh St Petersburg, which diverted from its Madagascar to Melbourne bound course to aid in the search efforts, arriving at the site at 6.56pm yesterday.
AMSA also says, in a statement, that another merchant ship is en route to the area, expected to arrive tonight.
"A total of six merchant ships have assisted in the search since a shipping broadcast was issued by AMSA on Monday night," it states, adding that the Royal Australian Navy HMAS Success is due to reach the site on March 22.
5.30am: The search operation for the objects captured by satellite in the Indian Ocean yesterday resumes.
- MAS flight MH370 went missing, en route to Beijing, not long after taking off from KL International Airport in the early hours of March 8, with 12 crew members and 227 passengers.
