MH370: Aircraft continue to report sightings of objects in search area

Today’s search activities involved a total of nine aircraft.

They included two Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) P3 Orions, a Japanese P3 Orion, a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force Ilyushin IL-76, a Republic of Korea Navy P3 Orion, a United States Navy P8 Poseidon, a Royal Malaysian Air Force C-130 Hercules and two civil aircraft.

Eight ships were tasked in the MH370 search area with a merchant ship also transiting through the area.

This represents the greatest number of ships tasked in the search to date.

Aircraft in the search area have continued to report sightings of objects similar to those reported previously. Objects sighted by aircraft cannot be verified or discounted as being from MH370 until they are relocated and recovered by ships. Nothing has yet been verified as being from MH370.

A number of objects were retrieved by HMAS Success and Haixun 01 yesterday. The objects have been examined on the ships and are not believed to be related to MH370. The objects have been described as fishing equipment and other flotsam.

The weather in the search area was described as reasonable for searching. Visibility was reported as being in excess of 10km.

The ADV Ocean Shield is scheduled to depart from Perth tomorrow, having been fitted with a black box detector and an autonomous underwater vehicle.