April 29, 2014 -- Updated 1746 GMT (0146 HKT)
Searchers hunting for the missing jet are dismissing claims by a company
that it has found wreckage of a plane thousands of miles from the
current search area. FULL STORY
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WAS SEARCH IN WRONG PLACE?
Searchers dispute company's claim that it may have found aircraft wreckage
April 29, 2014 -- Updated 1641 GMT (0041 HKT)
Company: These images may be MH370
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Site where it says the wreckage lies is several thousand miles away from current search area
- Relatives of passengers hear never-before-publicized audio from the plane
- More than 600 military members from around the world end their air search
- Crews will now search a larger, 60,000-square-kilometer area of the ocean floor
The reasons for the
skepticism are obvious -- the site where GeoResonance says it found the
wreckage, in the Bay of Bengal, is several thousand miles away from the
current search area in the southern Indian Ocean.
The Joint Agency Coordination Centre, which is coordinating the multinational search, dismissed the claim.
"The Australian-led
search is relying on information from satellite and other data to
determine the missing aircraft's location," the JACC said.
Photos: The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
Company: 'Confident' we found wreckage
Australia to focus search on ocean floor
Expansion of MH370 search to cost $56m
"The location specified
by the GeoResonance report is not within the search arc derived from
this data. The joint international team is satisfied that the final
resting place of the missing aircraft is in the southerly portion of the
search arc."
Malaysian acting
Transportation Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said Malaysia "is working
with its international partners to assess the credibility of this
information."
GeoResonance said it analyzes super-weak electromagnetic fields captured by airborne multispectral images.
"The company is not declaring this is MH370, however it should be investigated," GeoResonance said in a statement.
The company's director,
David Pope, said he did not want to go public with the information at
first, but his information was disregarded.
"We're a large group of
scientists, and we were being ignored, and we thought we had a moral
obligation to get our findings to the authorities," he told CNN's "New
Day" on Tuesday.
GeoResonance's
technology was created to search for nuclear, biological and chemical
weaponry under the ocean or beneath the earth in bunkers, Pope said.
The company began its
search four days after the plane went missing and sent officials initial
findings on March 31, Pope said. It followed up with a full report on
April 15.
By going public, the company says it hopes it will spur officials to take its claim seriously.
Malaysian authorities contacted GeoResonance on Tuesday and were "very interested, very excited" about the findings, Pope said.
Inmarsat, the company
whose satellite had the last known contact with MH370, remains "very
confident" in its analysis that the plane ended up in the southern
Indian Ocean, a source close to the MH370 investigation told CNN.
The Inmarsat analysis is
"based on testable physics and mathematics," the source said, and has
been reviewed by U.S., British and Malaysian authorities as well as an
independent satellite company.
Aerial search ends
After seven weeks of
intense but fruitless searching, the international air effort to find
the plane is over. But some ships will stay on the Indian Ocean to
gather any debris that might surface.
More than 600 military
personnel from at least seven countries solemnly posed in front of
search planes Tuesday for a commemorative photo. Some traded military
patches and mulled over their disappointment in not finding the Boeing
777.
Also on Tuesday,
relatives of missing passengers heard new details from officials,
including audio recordings from the plane that had never been released
to the public before.
The final words between
the cockpit and a control tower weren't extraordinary. But after 52 days
in limbo, families say they're finally starting to get some of the
answers they've been looking for.
More intense underwater search
Most of the international air crews will leave the Royal Australian Air Force Base Pearce, near Perth, over the next few days.
The likelihood of
finding any debris on the ocean's surface is "highly unlikely,"
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Monday. By now, most of the
debris is probably waterlogged and has probably sunk, he said.
So officials are moving
on to the next phase: a more intense underwater search that will use
private contractors and could cost about $56 million.
Crews will now scour a
much larger area of the ocean floor -- 60,000 square kilometers. The
process could take at least six to eight months, officials said.
The Bluefin-21
underwater probe will continue scanning the ocean floor. But the
submersible couldn't search Tuesday because of weather and very high
seas.
No one knows exactly
what happened to Flight 370, which disappeared on March 8 with 239
people on board. The plane was headed from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to
Beijing.
New details for relatives
Relatives of Chinese passengers have been furious about the perceived lack of information given by Malaysian authorities.
But on Tuesday,
Malaysian officials briefed scores of family members in Beijing and
played never-before-released audio of the plane's final chatter with a
control tower.
"Malaysia three seven
zero contact Ho Chi Minh 120.9, good night," says a voice identified by
Malaysian officials as that of a radar controller in Kuala Lumpur.
"Good night Malaysian three seven zero," answers a male voice believed to be a crew member on board.
Officials also showed
family members maps of the flight's route, including a questionable turn
at Penang over the Strait of Malacca. That turn sent the plane veering
far off course.
Malaysia Airlines
representative Subas Chandran said the plane probably ran out of fuel
about seven-and-a-half hours into the flight.
Such details, while sobering, were welcomed by relatives.
"They are making progress," said Jimmy Wang, a member of the families' committee aimed at seeking answers.
Miguel Marquez and David Molko reported from
Western Australia; Holly Yan reported and wrote from Atlanta. CNN's
Ivan Watson and Allen Shum contributed to this report.
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