World

Missing flight: AMSA search continues

| | 31 Mar 2014, 06:16 am

Perth, Mar 31: The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) continued its operation for search and recovery operation on Monday in the Australian Search and Rescue Region for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, even as Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said all evidences pointed that the flight was lost in the remote Indian Ocean region, thus supporting the Malaysian PM's statement that the flight had crashed and there is no hope for any survivor.

"The accumulation of evidence is that the aircraft has been lost and it has been lost somewhere in the south of the Indian Ocean. That\'s the absolutely overwhelming wave of evidence and I think that Prime Minister Najib Razak was perfectly entitled to come to that conclusion, and I think once that conclusion had been arrived at, it was his duty to make that conclusion public," Abbott told reporters near Perth.

The search for the day meanwhile commenced at about 9 am Australian time.

The search activities involved a total of 10 aircraft. They include one Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) P3 Orion, a Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) P3 Orion, one Japanese P3 Orion, a Japan Coast Guard Gulfstream jet, a Chinese People’s Liberation
Army Air Force Ilyushin IL-76, a Republic of Korea P3 Orion, a United States Navy P8 Poseidon, two Royal Malaysian Air Force C-130 Hercules and one civil jet acting as a communications relay.

A total of 10 ships have also been tasked to Monday\'s search. This includes HMAS Success and HMAS Toowoomba, seven Chinese ships and a merchant vessel.

"Search activities today will involve a total of 10 aircraft. They include three 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 P3 Orion, a United States Navy P8 Poseidon, two Malaysian Air Force C-130 Hercules and one civil jet acting as a communications relay," the AMSA said in a statement.

All ships in the search area are reportedly being tasked to locate and identify the objects sighted by aircraft over the past two days.

"A total of eight ships have also been tasked to today’s search," AMSA\'s statement said.

Earlier on Friday the search area for the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 was shifted north of Australia\'s West Coast in the Indian Ocean after international air crash investigators in Malaysia updated their previous analysis of the likely aircraft movements, said AMSA amid reports of sightings of various floating objects.

Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told reporters near Kuala Lumpur, however, that there was no new information of the objects sited floating in the Indian Ocean.

Malaysian Airlines, the flag carrier airline of Malaysia, on Tuesday last confirmed that its flight MH370 is now lost for ever in the Southern Indian Ocean and there are no survivors.

The Malaysia Airlines flight, which was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew and went missing since Mar 8.