WATCH ABOVE: Chinese relatives stage protest calling for the return of their relatives
LATEST UPDATES
- Family members of missing passengers arrive in Malaysia demanding to meet with senior officials for more answers
- Chinese plane spots 3 objects
- New Zealand air force plane spots objects in new search area
- Nine planes flew over the new search area Friday and six ships were headed there
- New data suggests the Boeing Triple-7 did not fly as far as first thought, according to officials
- Pilot’s son breaks silence, dismisses speculation
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – Several dozen Chinese relatives of passengers on Flight 370 have arrived in Malaysia to demand to meet top officials for more information about what happened to the airliner that has been missing for more than three weeks.
Two-thirds of the 227 passengers aboard the Malaysia Airlines plane that disappeared March 8 en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur were Chinese, and Beijing has urged Malaysia to be more open about the investigation.
A warship with an aircraft black box detector was set to depart Australia on Sunday to search for the missing Malaysian jetliner, a day after ships plucked objects from the Indian Ocean to determine whether they were related to the missing plane. None were confirmed to be from the plane, leaving searchers with no sign of the jet three weeks after it disappeared.
READ MORE: Search for Malaysian plane highlights role of satellites
It could take days for the Australian warship, the navy support ADV Ocean Shield, to reach the search zone, which shifted northeast Friday to an area roughly the size of Poland. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority, which oversees the search, said the ship will depart Perth on Sunday for the zone, about 1,850 kilometres (1,150 miles) to the west.
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The ship will be fitted with a black box detector – the U.S. Navy’s Towed Pinger Locator – and an unmanned underwater vehicle, as well as other acoustic detection equipment.
Ships from China and Australia on Saturday scooped up items described only as “objects from the ocean,” but none were “confirmed to be related” to Flight 370, AMSA said.
A Chinese Ilyushin IL-76 plane spotted three floating objects, China’s official Xinhua News Agency said, a day after several planes and ships combing the newly targeted area, which is closer to Australia than the previous search zone, saw several other objects.
READ MORE: Flight MH370: Canadian pilot helps in search for lost Malaysian Airlines jetliner
Meanwhile, a Chinese military plane scanning part of the search zone spotted several objects floating in the sea Saturday, including two bearing colours of the missing jet. The search shifted northeast Friday to a new part of the ocean that is roughly the size of Poland.
It was not immediately clear whether those objects were related to the investigation into what happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared March 8 en route from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing, and officials said the second day of searching in the new area ended with no evidence found of the jet.
The three objects spotted by the Chinese plane were white, red and orange in colour, the Xinhua report said. The missing Boeing 777’s exterior was red, white, blue and grey.
Investigators have been puzzled over what happened to Flight 370, with speculation ranging from equipment failure and a botched hijacking to terrorism or an act by one of the pilots.
READ MORE: Flight MH370: Search for jet finds nothing; stopped by weather
The latter was fueled by reports that the pilot’s home flight simulator had files deleted from it, but Malaysian Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said checks, including one by the FBI, had turned up no new information.
“What I know is that there is nothing sinister from the simulators, but of course that will have to be confirmed by the chief of police,” Hussein said.
Newly analyzed satellite data shifted the search zone on Friday, raising expectations that searchers may be closer to getting physical evidence that the plane crashed into the Indian Ocean.
That would also help narrow the hunt for the wreckage and the plane’s black boxes, which could contain clues to what caused the plane to be so far off-course.
The newly targeted zone is nearly 1,130 kilometres (700 miles) northeast of sites the searchers have crisscrossed for the past week. The redeployment came after analysts determined that the Boeing 777 may have been travelling faster than earlier estimates and would therefore have run out of fuel sooner.
The new search area is closer to Perth than the previous one, with a flying time of 2 1/2 hours each way, allowing for five hours of search.
AMSA said 10 planes are scheduled to join the search on Sunday. The first aircraft, a Chinese Ilyushin IL-76, left Perth air force base and the remainder would take over throughout the morning.
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