Another clue has surfaced in the case of the missing Malaysia airliner that has now been missing for five days. According to ABC News , satellite images posted on a Chinese government website show three large objects floating in the waters near the Malaysia airlines’ flight path.
The report continues on to say the photos were actually taken Sunday, the day after the Malaysia airliner went missing, though they weren’t uploaded to the Sastind website until today. According to CNN , China’s State Administration for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense announced the discovery, including images of what it said were “ three suspected floating objects and their sizes.”
The three objects are reportedly large in size. One measured in at 43 feet by 59 feet, the second 46 feet by 62 feet and finally the third which measured in at 79 feet by 72 feet. These items were found at 105.63 east longitude, 6.7 north latitude, which, according to CNN , “would put it in waters northeast of where it took off in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and south of Vietnam, near where the South China Sea meets the Gulf of Thailand.”
“It’s where it’s supposed to be,” Peter Goelz, a former National Transportation Safety Board managing director, told CNN . “I think they’ve got to get vessels and aircraft there as quickly as humanly possible.”
While these new findings breath new hope into the investigation behind the missing Malaysia airliner , the photos have yet to be considered concrete evidence. There have been a number of “promising” leads including other debris and oil slicks found in the area, though none of them have turned out to be from the actual missing airliner.
According to ABC News , Malaysia’s Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said in a press conference today that the search now includes 42 ships and 39 aircraft. “We will never give up hope,” he said. The search area has reportedly doubled in size from yesterday to nearly 27,000 square nautical miles, or 35,000 square miles.
According to author Bill Palmer, a search area of that size is immensely challenging. “It’s a very, very difficult situation to try to find anything,” Palmer told CNN . “Looking for pieces on the shimmering water doesn’t make it any easier.”
“I think the size of the pieces… everything we’ve heard… gives good cause to believe that we’ve now (refocused) the area,” former Federal Aviation Administration official Michael Goldfarb told CNN. “And that’s a huge relief to everybody… I think it’s a high chance that they’re going to confirm that these (are) pieces of the wreckage.”
At this moment, there has been no word on whether or not the debris in the images is actually part of the Malaysia airliner wreckage, though many are hopeful. Stay with The Inquisitr as more information becomes available.
[Image by Arpingstone via Wikimedia Commons ]