DAY 23 MH370 Updates and latest coverage as search for MH370 continues.

As the search for the missing MAS Flight MH370 enters the 23rd day today, more and more ships are joining the operation off the west coast of Australia.

Already at the scene are one Australian vessel and three Chinese vessels, and another six ships are arriving today.

 

“All ships in the search area are being tasked to locate and identify the objects sighted by aircraft over the past two days,” said Australian Maritime Safety Authority (Amsa) in a statement today.

 

Meanwhile, the Australian frigate HMAS Toowoomba left port for the search area 1,850 kilometres away yesterday, after being diverted from its previous mission of intercepting asylum seekers attempting to reach Australia.

 

Another Australian vessel ADV Ocean Shield is expected to arrive Perth later today to be fitted with vital search equipment provided by the US Navy.

 

These comprise a towed pinger locator to help find MH370’s black box, and a torpedo-shaped autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) carrying sophisticated sonar equipment and a camera for mapping the sea floor and finding possible wreckage.

 

Searchers have about seven more days before the black box’s pinger - which emits a sound to help searchers find it - runs out of battery power, after which the search becomes more difficult.

4.00pm: Satellite communications company Inmarsat has clarified that it is "highly confident" of its analysis of satellite data that concluded that MH370 had flown towards the Indian Ocean.

No press conference by Malaysian authorities

3.30pm: Malaysian authorities will not be holding a press conference on the search for MH370 today.

Objects found not from MH370

12pm: News agency dpa reports the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (Amsa) saying objects retrieved thus far from the Indian Ocean search have turned up negative .

Items scooped from the sea by Chinese and Australian ships have turned out to be fishing material or rubbish, it reports.

Meanwhile Amsa says a Royal Australian Air Force P-3 Orion aircraft originally tasked to search for MH370 has been reassigned after a distress signal was detected from a fishing vessel near Antarctica.

A civilian jet will be replacing the P-3 in the MH370 search while it heads off towards the new emergency, the nature of which is still unknown since radio contact could not be established with the vessel.

"The P-3 is capable of dropping survival equipment. It will take five hours to reach the location of the beacon," Amsa says in a statement.

Arriving families hidden from media

11am: Holiday Villa Subang - The Chinese next-of-kin are now meeting with MAS and MCA's crisis relieve squad at Ivory Court Room.

The families are said to have wanted to give a press conference earlier, but the MCA posse led by Chew Mei Fun ( left ) insisted on meeting them first.

Journalists are told to wait outside the meeting room.

9.30am: Thirty-five Chinese family members arrive in KLIA today, but leave the airport in two coaches after being spotted by the some 30 local and foreign journalists who are waiting at the arrival hall.

MCA vice president Chew Mei Fun - who has been appointed as Malaysia's special envoy to deal with families from Beijing and is leading the MCA crisis relief squad - also waits at the same area with MAS officials.

It is later understood that the family members were escorted by 20 security personnel and had left the airport through the first floor exit.

It is also understood the family members will stay at a hotel in Subang.

Hisham: What more do people want?

9am:

Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein says there is a need to strengthen Malaysia’s defences especially following MH370’s disappearance, Bernama reported late last night.

 

“Malaysia made a very courageous decision to talk about our defence capabilities.

 

“And now, Prime Minister Najib Razak has got to find me the money to change our radar system because the whole world now knows our defence capabilities, in terms of radar,” he said, reportedly in jest.

"We did that, putting aside national interests to find MH370.

"What more do the people want from the government of Malaysia and from the ATM (Malaysian Armed Forces)?" he asked.

He also said other countries would have to upgrade their defence capabilities as well, noting that much of the satellite imagery used in the search were from commercial satellites rather than military.

Protests in China

 

8.45am: The Malaysian government has come under strong criticism from China, home to more than 150 of the passengers, where relatives of the missing have accused the government of "delays and deception". 

 

According to Reuters , more than 20 Chinese relatives staged a brief protest yesterday outside the Lido hotel in Beijing where families have been staying for the past three weeks, demanding evidence of the plane's fate. 

 

The peaceful protest came just days after dozens of angry relatives clashed with police after trying to storm the Malaysian embassy. 

 

Many of Saturday's protesters carried slogans demanding the "truth" about their lost loved ones. 

 

"They don't have any direct evidence," said Steve Wang, who had a relative on the flight.

 

"(Their conclusion) is only based on mathematical (analysis) and they used an uncertain mathematical model. Then they come to the conclusion that our relatives are all gone." 

Search area the size of Malaysia

8.30am: To recap, the search area was shifted by 1,100km from the previous search area on Friday, and is now 1,850km west of Perth.

 

The previous search area was about 2,500 kilometres of Perth, but new analyses showed MH370 was flying faster than previously thought, and would not have flown as far due to higher fuel consumption.

 

Since then, aircraft have made sightings of many suspicious objects in the sea and ships in the area have already retrieved some, but none have been linked to the missing aircraft so far.

 

Finding pieces of the Boeing 777-200ER floating in the ocean is a crucial step towards narrowing down the search area, which in turn would allow the underwater search to commence.

 

It is impractical to search large swathes of ocean with the towed pinger locator or the AUV because neither can be used at speeds above 10 kilometres per hour, and actual speed can be considerably slower in practice depending on search conditions.

 

The current search area spans 319,000 square kilometres – just slightly smaller than the size of Malaysia.

RMAF joins search

3.45am: For the first time, Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) aircraft are also participating the search after arriving in Perth yesterday.

 

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (Amsa) says the two RMAF C-130 transport aircraft will be joining eight other aircraft in today’s search, weather permitting.

 

In a separate statement later, Amsa says both aircraft are scheduled to depart Perth at 4pm Malaysian time.

According to Amsa, the weather in the search area is forecasted to worsen today with light showers and low clouds, but the search is expected to continue.

New batch of Chinese next-of-kin in KL

1am: According to Bernama , a new batch of next-of-kin of Chinese passengers who were on board of the missing MH370 are arriving today in Kuala Lumpur.

 

The families hope to be updated on the latest developments in the search and rescue (SAR) operation on the missing flight.

The high-level team from Malaysia to update the relatives in Beijing on the SAR operation led by Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) air operations commander Lt Gen Ackbal Abdul Samad had promised them that they would be accommodated at the Bangi-Putrajaya Hotel on Monday after the conclusion of the Malaysian Formula 1 Grand Prix race.

Ackbal said the relatives would be accommodated at a different hotel first once they arrived in KL.

Bangi-Putrajaya Hotel is where  families of other Chinese passengers on the board the ill-fated flight are currently staying.