BALTIMORE, Maryland April 23, 2014 - Debris Washed Up on Shore in Western Australia Being Examined for Connections to Missing Malaysian Jet carrying 239 People Debris has washed up on shores in one or more Western Australia locations, and the international team searching for a missing Malaysian Airlines Jet carrying 239 people are studying it to see if it might be from the lost plane. This, on a day when the aerial search of the Southern Indian Ocean has been suspended because of a passing Cyclone. The respected aviation blog, Plane Talking, authored by Australian Ben Sandilands, says one piece of debris of interest to the international team being coordinated by Retired Air Chief Marshal August Houston, is a sheet of plastic similar to those found in the cabin of the missing Boeing 777. Other sources say another piece of debris is a piece of sheet metal with rivet holes in it.
The debris is described as plastic sheets which may, according to one expert, be from the cabin of the missing jet, but no confirmation has been made. And there are other reports of debris washing up in a different location, with that debris being described as sheet metal with holes for rivets. There has been no reported confirmation that the debris was either from the missing jet, which lost contact with air traffic controllers about 40 minutes into its scheduled six hour flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Beijing, China. After air traffic controllers lost contact with the jet in the extremely early hours of March 8, military radar followed the plane for another 30 minutes, give or take, and saw that the plane had turned dramatically off course. When radar also lost the plane, it continued to emit data that was detected by earth-orbiting satellites for between seven and eight more hours. High-tech analysis of the so-called "handshakes" between the plane and the satellites have convinced searchers that the plane went on a mysterious journey that ended in the Southern Indian Ocean some 1500 kilometers west northwest of Perth, Australia. That portion of the Indian Ocean is remote from any land, and is between one and four miles deep, with swells of some 30 feet. And with the cyclone called "Jack" passing in the vicinity of the search area, the conditions have worsened. Ships searching the surface for debris have continued to look, but airplanes involved have been ordered back to their bases, Likewise, the submersible Bluefin 21 has begun its ninth mission looking for debris in the area determined by the search team to be the most likely area to find the planes two black boxes. The entire high profile area will have been searched in the next 48 hours, the search team has said.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said this week that the search will continue even if the Bluefin-21 Seach comes up empty. The first eight missions have not found any debris or possible parts of the missing jet. In fact, other than the four instances when pings or pulses were detected that might have been from the missing jet's black boxes, no confirmed sightings of anything connected to the missing jet have been discovered. The four instances of audible pings from the black boxes were at the correct reading on the sound dial that the black boxes would have emitted their pings at. But the pings have stopped, which in and of itself is not a bad sign since the batteries in the black boxes are such that they emit their locating pings for between 30 and 40 days before going dead.
The debris today was found east of Augusta, the town nearest Cape Leeuwin, the southwestern tip of Australia, according to the Sandilands blog. The blog reported that police at Brussleton have secured the area on the shore where the debris was located, photographed the debris, and sent those photos to the search team headquarters in Perth and also to Kuala Lumpur, where the overall search is being directed. During a press briefing in Kuala Lumpur today, the Malaysian Authorities admitted that they were initially intrigued by the discoveries, but have become less intrigued as time went by.
The objects were found on the day the aerial search for floating debris had moved closer than ever to the Western Australian coastline, but at a location more than 800 kilometers northwest of Perth, in the Indian Ocean, rather than the northern reaches of the great Southern Ocean where the remnants were found, Mr. Sandilands reported.
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