Kuala Lumpur, March 24- Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak today said that new radar analysis has concluded that the missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 has crashed in the south Indian Ocean, bringing to end a 17-day mystery of the fate of the runaway jetliner.
The revelation also confirms the tragic news that no passengers could have survived the crash of the plane which went off radar one hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, carrying 239 passengers and crew, on March 8.
“With deep sadness and regret that I must inform you that, according to this new data, flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean,” said a sombre Najib in a hastily arranged press conference. Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein was with him.
Najib said that he was briefed by representatives from the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) this evening to tell him that Inmarsat, the UK company that provided the satellite data which indicated the northern and southern corridors, has been performing further calculations on the data.
Using a type of analysis never before used in an investigation of this sort, they have been able to shed more light on MH370’s flight path, he said.
“Based on their new analysis, Inmarsat and the AAIB have concluded that MH370 flew along the southern corridor, and that its last position was in the middle of the Indian Ocean, west of Perth,” said Najib.
“This is a remote location, far from any possible landing sites. It is therefore with deep sadness and regret that I must inform you that, according to this new data, flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean,” he added in a very brief statement. He did not take questions from journalists.
He said that the authorities would be holding a press conference tomorrow with further details.
“In the meantime, we wanted to inform you of this new development at the earliest opportunity. We share this information out of a commitment to openness and respect for the families, two principles which have guided this investigation,” he said.
He also added that Malaysia Airlines have already spoken to the families of the passengers and crew to inform them of this development.
“For them, the past few weeks have been heartbreaking; I know this news must be harder still.
I urge the media to respect their privacy, and to allow them the space they need at this difficult time,” he said.
It is believed the search mission for the rest of the plane and the remains of its passengers, as well as the all important black box, will continue. The black box is important for the investigators to determine the cause of the crash.
Earlier Malaysia Airlines sent SMS message to relatives to say:
“Malaysia Airlines deeply regrets that we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those on board survived. As you will hear in the next hour from Malaysia’s Prime Minister, we must now accept all evidence suggests the plane went down in the Southern Indian Ocean.”
Family members of the passengers in the jetliner have been briefed of this new breakthrough and efforts are being made to fly them to Perth as soon as possible.
The Malaysia Airlines flight went missing from civilian radar an hour after takeoff when it was flying over the South China Sea. The aircraft was picked up by military radar an hour later in the western side of peninsula Malaysia flying towards the Andaman Sea.
The flight transponder which tracks the plane was switched off internally. Investigators now believe that the flight was flying over the Indian Ocean, based on the ‘pings’ sent out by the plane which was picked up by satellite feeds.
The plane is suspected to have flown some five hours before its “pings” went missing. Most of the passengers on board were Chinese nationals. The focus of the search now is centered some 2,500km southwest of the Australian city of Perth.
Yesterday, 18,500 square nautical miles were searched in the Australian search area where an Australian search aircraft had located two objects, one circular and one rectangular.
Earlier this evening, Najib had received a call from the Australian Prime Minister about the two objects, and that an Australian ship was in the vicinity to pick up the objects.
The search missions was largely concentrated in the south Indian Ocean region following satellite images of floating debris, which until now were not confirmed to be from MH370.
-FreeMalaysiaToday
