Investigators searching for a missing Malaysian jet have concluded an area where acoustic signals were detected is not the final resting place of the plane after an unmanned submersible found no trace of it, the search coordinator said yesterday.
The US Navy’s Bluefin 21 finished its final underwater mission in the southern Indian Ocean on Wednesday after scouring 850km2, the Joint Agency Coordination Center said.
“The area can now be discounted as the final resting place” of the missing plane, the Australia-based center said in a statement.
The underwater search for the plane, which vanished on March 8 with 239 people on board en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, will be suspended for a couple months while more powerful sonar equipment is brought in to search a much wider area of 56,000km2, based on analysis of satellite data of the plane’s most likely course, the center said.
That analysis has led authorities to believe that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 diverted sharply from its flight path and flew south to the Indian Ocean.
However, not a single piece of the missing Boeing 777 has been found in one of aviation’s most baffling mysteries.
The news comes after the US Navy dismissed a US expert’s reported comments that acoustic “pings” heard last month did not come from the airplane’s black boxes.
CNN reported that the US Navy’s civilian deputy director of ocean engineering, Michael Dean, said most countries now agreed that the sounds detected by the navy’s Towed Pinger Locator came from a manmade source unrelated to the jet.
“Mike Dean’s comments today were speculative and premature, as we continue to work with our partners to more thoroughly understand the data acquired by the Towed Pinger Locator,” US Navy spokesman Chris Johnson said in a statement, referring to Australia and Malaysia.
Dean, who is based in Washington, could not be immediately reached for comment.
In an e-mailed response to questions, the joint coordination agency said it was still examining the signals, but acknowledged: “We may never know the origin of the acoustic detections.”
The agency would not yet reveal the next most likely crash site, saying that “will be made public in due course.”
Australian Transport Minister Warren Truss said authorities would continue to analyze the sounds that led to the initial search area.
“We concentrated the search in that area because the pings, the information we received, was the best information available at the time and that’s all you can do in circumstances like this, to follow the very best leads,” Truss told the Australian parliament in announcing the search’s failure.
“We’re still very confident that the resting place of the aircraft is in the southern ocean and along” the course indicated by satellite analysis, he added.
Australian opposition MP Tony Burke offered his party’s condolences to the victims’ families.
“The hopes of many have been dashed,” Burke told parliament.
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
CYBERSCAM: Anne, an interior decorator with mental health problems, spent a year and a half believing she was communicating with Brad Pitt and lost US$855,259 A French woman who revealed on TV how she had lost her life savings to scammers posing as Brad Pitt has faced a wave of online harassment and mockery, leading the interview to be withdrawn on Tuesday. The woman, named as Anne, told the Seven to Eight program on the TF1 channel how she had believed she was in a romantic relationship with the Hollywood star, leading her to divorce her husband and transfer 830,000 euros (US$855,259). The scammers used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts, as well as artificial intelligence image-creating technology to send Anne selfies and other messages
RSS