Kuala Lumpur, April 30 – An Australian marine exploration firm on Tuesday claimed that it may have found the wreckage of the crashed Malaysian jet in the Bay of Bengal, even as countries searching for the plane said they were assessing the “credibility of this information”.
Adelaide-based GeoResonance on Monday said it had begun its own search for the missing flight MH370 on March 10, the Star newspaper reported.
GeoResonance’s search covered 2,000,000 square kilometres of the possible crash zone, using images obtained from satellites and aircraft, with company scientists focusing their efforts north of plane’s last known location, using over 20 technologies to analyse the data including a nuclear reactor, company spokesperson David Pope said.
He claimed his company used technology originally designed to find nuclear warheads and submarines.
Pope said GeoResonance compared their findings with images taken on March 5, three days before MH370 went missing, and did not find what they had detected at the spot.
“The wreckage wasn’t there prior to the disappearance of MH370. We’re not trying to say it definitely is MH370.
However, it is a lead we feel should be followed up,” said Pope.
The location of the wreckage as claimed by the company is 5,000 km away from the current search area in the Indian Ocean and about 190 kilometres south of Bangladesh.
Reacting to the claim, Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said China and Australia were aware of the information.
“Malaysia is working with its international partners to assess the credibility of this information,” a statement from his office said.
Another GeoResonance spokesperson, Pavel Kursa, said several elements found in commercial airliners were detected at the Bay of Bengal spot identified by GeoResonance.
“We identified chemical elements and materials that make up a Boeing 777…these are aluminium, titanium, copper, steel alloys and other materials,” Kursa said in a statement.
The Beijing-bound Malaysia Airlines flight MH370- carrying 239 people, including five Indians, had mysteriously vanished on March 8 after taking off from Kuala Lumpur.
The mystery of the missing plane continued to baffle aviation and security authorities who have so far not succeeded in tracking the aircraft despite deploying hi-tech radar and other gadgets.
-India Today
