Search for Malaysia Airlines Flight Continues
The search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight continues, with international crews racing to locate the plane's black box recorder, days before its batteries are set to die.
CRI's Tu Yun has more.
Reporter: Ten planes and eight ships scanned the search area in the southern Indian Ocean on Sunday, in the most intensive day of searching so far during the operation.
Australian authorities say several objects were spotted by its aircraft. Some have already been ruled out but there remains at least four objects of interest.
Lieutenant Russell Adams is with the Royal Australian Air Force.
"We were able to detect many objects in the water today, we were able to rule a few out as fishing buoys and fishing nets. However, of interest today we did encounter an area within approximately 500 nautical miles, included at least four orange colored objects, greater than approximately 2 meters in size each. I must stress that we can't confirm the origin of these objects, however the details of these in association with a GPS buoy have been passed on to our rescue coordination centre."
He says the origin of the objects can not be verified until they have been recovered.
On Saturday, a number of objects were retrieved by Chinese and Australian vessels, but later proved to be fishing equipment and other flotsam.
A total of seven Chinese ships are participating in the ongoing search for evidence of the missing flight.
An Australian vessel carrying a sophisticated U.S. black box locator and an underwater drone is expected to join the search in the coming days.
The black box locator is designed to detect ultrasonic signals from flight recorders and can operate up to a depth of about 6,000 meters.
The flight recorder's batteries are expected to run out in about a week's time.
Meantime, a new group of relatives of some of the missing Chinese passengers has arrived in Kuala Lumpur.
The relatives are calling on Malaysian authorities to release all related search data, and are demanding an apology for saying the plane "ended" in the Indian Ocean, a conclusion they call 'hasty.'
Wen Wanchang is the father of one of the passengers.
"They have not provided evidence that the plane went down in the sea. What we want is evidence. We know there were signals being sent by at least four transmitters, even this they cannot provide as proof. On what grounds are they saying the plane went down in the sea?"
The families are also calling for a meeting with aircraft manufacturers and service providers.
Earlier, Malaysian authorities said the search for survivors will continue.
Malaysia Airlines also says it will send family members to Perth once it has been confirmed that the wreckage of the missing flight is found.
The MH370 disappeared en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur more than three weeks ago.
Two-thirds of the passengers aboard the plane were Chinese.
Today's search will resume subject to weather conditions.
Strong gales are forecast in the next two days with big waves and low visibility in the search site west of Australia.
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