Malaysia Airlines 370 Update: New Photo Analysis Aids Search

Malaysia Airlines 370 mysteriously crashed in March 2014, and search efforts are still underway to find the missing plane.

MALAYSIA AIRLINES 370 UPDATE

Newly-discovered satellite images are being analyzed that could show airplane debris. The photos were taken about a month after the plane disappeared in 2014, and show 70 objects drifting in the water near the predicted crash zone. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau reports that, “analysis classified 12 objects as ‘probably man-made,’ …but cannot determine whether they are aircraft debris.”

In fact, the photos were taken by the French Ministry of Defense, and “the ATSB had to negotiate the release of the native resolution imagery” from them, said a spokesperson.

Physical oceanographer David Griffin says the photos could help pinpoint MH370’s location to an “unprecedented” degree, if they are in fact showing plane parts. “It hangs on the impossible thing to know, which is whether these were actual pieces of the plane,” he said.

ATSB chief commissioner Greg Hood cautioned people to treat this information with caution, reminding that the answer still may never be found. “The image resolution is not high enough to be certain whether the objects originated from MH370 or are other objects that might be found floating in oceans around the world,” he said.

Flight MH370 departed from Kuala Lumpur on its way to Beijing, but within hours of its departure, stopped communicating and vanished from radar. There were 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board. As of June 2016, seven fragments of the missing plane have either been confirmed as found, or highly likely, spread from the islands of Mauritius, Madagascar, Reunion, Pemba, and part of South Africa.

In December 2016, researchers suggested a new search area between 33 and 36 degrees latitude. Now Griffin believes the plane could be located at 35.6 degrees latitude by 92.8 degrees longitude. “We’ve already chosen an area where we think the plane was likely to have crashed, the proposed new search area” Griffin told CNN.

“So let’s make a prediction, if you’re right, and that’s where the plane crashed, if we had a close look at the ocean … and saw no strange images we’d think ‘Oh gee we’re wrong’ (but) indeed we looked at the images and saw all these strange objects. It’s not conclusive but it’s the best you could hope for.”

For now, the search has concluded, but would be reopened if “credible” new evidence was brought forth.