PERTH, April 3 – Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot on Thursday appealed to families of passengers of MH370 jetliner to be patient in finding any evidence of the plane which went missing more than three weeks ago, China’s Xinhua news agency reported.
After meeting his Malaysian counterpart Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak in Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Base Pearce near Perth, Abbot said despite enormous difficulties he was upbeat about solving the mystery “with the best brains in the world”.
“Everyday we have a higher degree of confidence that we know more about what happened to this ill-fated flight,” he said.
“We do owe it to the families of the 239 people on board, we owe it to our good friend Malaysia, we owe it to the people and government of China, we owe it to the troubled citizens of a wider world to do everything we can to solve this extraordinary mystery.”
The three-week massive hunt, labelled by Abbot as “the most difficult search in human history”, has yielded no trace of the plane.
Time is running out to find any debris to work out a likely crash zone and recover the aircraft’s black boxes before batteries pinging their location die.
Hopes of a breakthrough had been raised after the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) revealed a new search zone about 1,100 kilometres northeast of the previous one on Friday based on analysis that the plane had been travelling faster than previously thought.
“Please be patient, I know it is the extraordinarily difficult and devastating time for you, but we’ll not let you down,” the Australian prime minister said.
“When the time comes for the passengers’ families to visit Australia, you will be warmly welcomed,” he said.
Seven countries comprising Australia, China, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, South Korea and the United States are assisting in the search in southern Indian Ocean west of Perth.
Australia has set up a new Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) based in Perth to oversee day-to-day operations.
Up to eight aircraft and nine ships will be involved in Thursday’s hunt as the search area was adjusted to move further north.
– BERNAMA
