Search ships arrive at new debris site, but still no confirmation of Flight 370's end
(CNN) - Three weeks after Malaysia Airlines Flights 370 set off from Kuala Lumpur, search aircraft set off Saturday from Australia - hoping to, finally, find the Boeing 777 in the southern Indian Ocean where experts now believe it ended up.
The area that search teams - including a Chinese Ilyushin IL-76 and an Australian P-3 Orion that set off Saturday morning from Perth - are now focusing on is 1,100 kilometers (680 miles) to the northeast from where they'd been concentrating for more than a week, and it's closer to the Australian coast. This change is thanks to a new analysis of satellite data that Australian authorities say show the commercial airliner could not have flown as far south as once thought.
Saturday's renewed search comes days after Japan and Thailand both said they'd sent new satellite images to Malaysia showing debris fields that could be related to the plane, which vanished with 239 people aboard.
Air Vice-Marshal Kevin Short, commander of Joint Forces New Zealand, told CNN's Erin Burnett five of the dispatched aircraft "located debris in their search area" on Friday. Some of the spottings were "hundreds of miles away" from each other, although Short said this vast expanse is "not unusual" given the ocean conditions and the time passed since the airplane's purported crash.
That includes 11 small objects spotted by one of his military's P-3 planes. CNN's Kyung Lah, who went out on a U.S. Navy P-8 search plane Friday, said the crew of that plane spotted white objects, orange rope and a blue bag.
"At one point, sure, everybody on board got a little excited, but it's impossible to tell from that distance what anything is," she said.
PM: Malaysian airliner's flight ended over Indian Ocean
(CNN) - Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 went down over the southern Indian Ocean, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said Monday, citing a new analysis of satellite data by a British satellite company and accident investigators.
The announcement appeared to rule out the possibility that anyone could have survived whatever happened to the aircraft, which vanished more than two weeks ago with 239 people aboard.
As Razak spoke, airline representatives met with family members in Beijing. "They have told us all lives are lost," one relative of a missing passenger told CNN.
The developments happened the same day as Australian officials announced they had spotted two objects in the southern Indian Ocean that could be related to the flight, which has been missing since March 8 with 239 people aboard.
One object is "a grey or green circular object," and the other is "an orange rectangular object," the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said.
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