MH370 response team assesses proposals from interested parties

KUALA LUMPUR: The MH370 Response Team is assessing several proposals from interested parties to search for the vanished Flight MH370 jetliner, says Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) Director-General Datuk Azharuddin Abdul Rahman (pix).
He said this in light of all available information including the newly-released Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation's (CSIRO) Search for MH370 and Ocean Surface Drift – Part III report by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) today.
The matter, he added, would be brought to the attention of Australia and China to seek their views.
"I wish to reiterate that the aspiration to locate MH370 has not been abandoned and every decision made, has and will always be in the spirit of tripartite cooperation among the three nations," he said in a statement here today.
On March 8, 2014, Flight MH370, carrying 239 passengers and crew vanished from the radar after leaving Kuala Lumpur enroute to Beijing.
Azharuddin said the report presented a thorough analysis of the refined MH370 ocean drift pattern based on available information and satellite images.
"We remain to be guided as to how this can be used to assist us in identifying the specific location of the aircraft," he added.
Azharuddin said during the Ministerial Tripartite meeting in July last year, the governments of Australia, Malaysia and China agreed that consideration would be given in determining the next steps should credible new information emerge which could be used to identify the location of the jetliner.
In a statement released in ATSB website today, ATSB Chief Commissioner Greg Hood said the bureau had released two reports today, prepared by Geoscience Australia and Commonwealth Scientific and CSIRO, providing analysis and findings relating to satellite imagery taken on March 23, 2014, two weeks after the disappearance of MH370, over the southern Indian Ocean.
He said experts from Geoscience Australia identified a number of objects from four satellite imagery acquired through the assistance of the French authorities, which had been classified as probably man-made.
"The image resolution is not high enough to be certain whether the objects originated from MH370 or are other objects that might be found floating in oceans around the world," he added.
According to the ATSB statement, given the proximity to the defined underwater search area, the CSIRO conducted a drift study to determine the geographic origin of the objects identified in the satellite images to provide an indication of where they were likely to have been on March 8, 2014.
It said the drift study found the projected location on March 8, of the objects identified in most of the satellite images was consistent with the area identified by experts during the MH370 First Principles Review in November 2016.
"Clearly, we must be cautious. These objects have not been definitely identified as MH370 debris," said Hood. — Bernama