Australian company says it has found possible wreckage of missing Malaysian plane
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An Australian exploration company has claimed that it has found the debris of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, six weeks after it left Kuala Lumpur International Airport for Beijing.
Adelaide-based GeoResonance said it had begun its own search for the missing jet on March 10 and that it has detected possible wreckage in the Bay of Bengal, 5,000km away from the current search location in the southern Indian Ocean off Perth.
Malaysia’s acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said the claim has yet to be verified and the MH370 Technical Committee meeting will discuss the issue later.
GeoResonance’s search covered 2 million square kilometres of the possible crash zone, using images obtained from satellites and aircraft, with company scientists focusing their efforts north of MH370’s last known location, using more than 20 technologies to analyse the data including a nuclear reactor.
“The technology that we use was originally designed to find nuclear warheads, submarines. Our team in the Ukraine decided we should try and help,” company spokesperson David Pope said.
Pope added GeoResonance had compared their findings with images taken on March 5, three days before MH370 was reported missing – and they did not find what they had detected at that spot. “The wreckage wasn’t there prior to the disappearance of MH370. We’re not trying to say that it definitely is MH370, however, it is a lead we feel should be followed up,” said Pope.
Another GeoResonance spokesperson, Pavel Kursa, added that several elements found in commercial airliners was detected at the Bay of Bengal spot.
“We identified chemical elements and materials that make up a Boeing 777 … these are aluminium, titanium, copper, steel alloys and other materials,” said Kursa in a statement reported by Australian news channel 7News.
Malaysia wasn’t jumping to any conclusions.
“There have been too many speculations out there, it is impossible to entertain them all. However, the search mission is still ongoing and the status quo remains,” Hussein said.
MH370, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, left the KL International Airport at 12.41am on March 8 and disappeared from radar screens about an hour later.
