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No sign, suspected debris may have sunk: Australia (Reuters) / 22 March 2014 Aircraft return to area near where objects spotted by satellite The international team hunting for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean has not turned up anything so far, and Australia’s deputy prime minister said the suspected debris may have sunk. Aircraft and ships have renewed a search in the Andaman Sea between India and Thailand, going over areas that have already been exhaustively swept to find some clue to unlock one of the most inexplicable mysteries in modern aviation. Royal Australian Air Force Loadmasters, Sergeant Adam Roberts and Flight Sergeant John Mancey, preparing to launch a Self Locating Data Marker Buoy from a C-130J Hercules aircraft in the southern Indian Ocean as part of the search for Malaysian flight. — AFP The Boeing 777 went missing almost two weeks ago off the Malaysian coast with 239 people aboard. There has been no confirmed sign of wreckage but two objects seen floating deep south in the Indian Ocean were considered a credibe lead and set off a huge hunt on Thursday. Australian authorities said the first aircraft to sweep treacherous seas on Friday in an area about 2,500 km southwest of Perth was on its way back to base without spotting the objects picked out by satellite images five days ago. “Something that was floating on the sea that long ago may no longer be floating,” Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss told reporters in Perth. “It may have slipped to the bottom.” But the search is continuing and and Australian, New Zealand and US aircraft would be joined by Chinese and Japanese planes over the weekend. “It’s about the most inaccessible spot that you can imagine on the face of the Earth, but if there is anything down there, we will find it,” Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott told reporters in Papua New Guineau, where he is on a visit. “Now it could just be a container that’s fallen off a ship. We just don’t know, but we owe it to the families, and the friends and the loved ones to do everything we can to try to resolve what is as yet an extraordinary riddle.” India said it was sending two aircraft, a Poseidon P-8I maritime surveillance aircraft and a C-130 Hercules transporter, to join the hunt in the southern Indian Ocean. It is also sending another P-8I and four warships to search in the Andaman Sea, where the plane was last seen on military radar on March 8. In New Delhi, officials said the search in areas around the Andaman island chain was not at the request of Malaysian authorities coordinating the global search for the airliner. “All the navies of the world have SAR regions,” said Capt. D.K. Sharma, an Indian navy spokesman, referring to search and rescue regions. “So we’re doing it at our own behest. “We’re doing it on our own because the Malaysian plane is still missing.” Investigators suspect Flight MH370, which took off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing shortly after midnight on March 8, was deliberately diverted thousands of miles from its scheduled path. They say they are focusing on hijacking or sabotage but have not ruled out technical problems. The search for the plane also continues in other regions, including a wide arc sweeping northward from Laos to Kazakhstan. In the Indian Ocean, three Australian P-3 Orions joined a high-tech US Navy P-8 Poseidon and a civilian Bombardier Global Express jet to search the 23,000 square km zone, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said. For more news from Khaleej Times, follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/khaleejtimes , and on Twitter at @khaleejtimes Taylor Scott International
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