New debris sightings; storms ground missing plane’s air search

Bangkok/Perth: A Thai satellite has detected 300 floating objects in southern Indian Ocean that could possibly be the debris of the missing Malaysian plane, even as bad weather on Thursday grounded multination air search for the aircraft’s wreckage.
Thaichote satellite detected the objects in the Indian Ocean on March 24 at 10am local time, Anond Snidvongs, executive director of Thailand’s Geo Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency, said. The site was about 2,700 kilometres from Perth and about 200 kilometres from the international search area where the flight is thought to have come down. Some objects were more than two-metres long, Anond said.
The missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 with 239 people on board, including five Indians, crashed in remote southern Indian Ocean with no survivors and their families have been informed, Malaysia had announced on Monday. The Thai report was the second in two days suggesting a possible debris from the crashed jet.
On Wednesday it was reported that 122 objects were spotted in remote southern Indian Ocean by French satellite. However, an international air and sea search has failed so far to find the wreckage of the plane, which went missing on March 8.
The images of 300 floating objects have already been submitted to the Thai government which will forward them to Malaysia to examine if they were of the debris of the plane. Thaichote or Thailand Earth Observation Satellite is a remote sensing satellite for natural resources observation. Earlier, Australian and Chinese satellites had also detected unidentified debris. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) today called off the air search because of thunderstorms and gale-force winds. Ships will try to continue the search, Australian officials said.
“Bad weather expected for next 24 hours,” the agency tweeted. Earlier today, AMSA said in a statement, “Search activities today will involve a total of 11 aircraft and five ships. Today’s search is split into two areas within the same proximity covering a cumulative 78,000 square kilometres”.
Eight planes reached the zone but faced zero visibility and returned to base. (PTI)