Determined search for Malaysian Airlines resumes

Kuala Lumpur: As more planes join the search for in pursuit of the missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 amidst cloudy weather, the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott sounded optimistic at a press conference, “We have now had a number of very credible leads, and there is increasing hope that we might be on the road to discovering what did happen to this ill-fated aircraft.”

On Friday, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) spotted two objects bobbing up and down in the Sourthern Indian Ocean through satellite imagery. One was 80 feet high while the other was 16 feet – the size of both seemed resonant with the missing aircraft. A day later, China released a satellite image showing a large object flowing in the search zone, Associated Press reported. The floating object was about 77 miles from where earlier satellite images spotted the two objects.

The object the Chinese photographed is 22.5 meters long and 13 meters wide (74 feet by 43 feet), officials said.

In one of the great aviation mysteries in history, the airliner carrying 239 people disappeared March 8. Eight planes from across the globe search over the Indian Ocean on Sunday, while six planes were at it on Saturday.

“Obviously, the more aircraft we have, the more ships we have, the more confident we are of recovering whatever material is down there,” Abbott said Sunday. “And obviously before we can be too specific about what it might be, we do actually need to recover some of this material.” The international search for the missing aircraft resumed early Sunday near Perth, with a U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon rejoining the effort, according to a naval spokesman.

Planes from the United States, New Zealand, Australia and China will be flying. Three planes, two civilian aircraft and the P-8, were airborne by 7 am. Perth time (7 p.m. ET). New Chinese satellite images “will be taken into consideration” in the search, said a spokesperson from AMSA.

The intense air and sea search - which will now employ NASA satellites - entered its third week with no new clues to give families answers about the fate of the passengers and crew.

Countries from central Asia to Australia are also engaged in the search along an arc drawn by authorities based on satellite pings received from the plane hours after it vanished. One arc tracks the southern Indian Ocean zone that's the focus of current attention. The other tracks over parts of Cambodia, Laos, China and into Kazakhstan.

Malaysian authorities are also obtained permission from Kazakhstan's government to use the country as a staging area for the northern corridor search, said Hishammuddin, the Malaysian Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein. Countries involved in the Northern Search Corridor have not reportedany possible sightings of MH370 on their radars.

Asked if Cyclone Gillian which was approaching the Christmas Island in Australia Saturday would affect the search operation, the AMSA spokesman said that it is a “a long way off.”