Could vital information on Malaysia jet be in Australia?
Malaysia are said to have asked for top secret data from US spy satellites monitored from Australia, in an attempt to track down the missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370.
Warning: the video above contains flash photography
According to the government-controlled New Straits Times, authorities on Wednesday asked the US to share information obtained at a base near Alice Springs in the northern territory of Australia.
Authorities in Kuala Lumpur believe that finding the plane now depends on the willingness of a number of countries to share secret radar and satellite data, The Sydney Morning Herald reports.
However, acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein earlier said Malaysia remained unwilling to disclose “some radar data” received in the search for missing plane.
‘Some radar data’ received
He told reporters: “I can confirm that we have received some radar data,” he said. “But we are not at liberty to release information from other countries.
“I appeal to all our partners to continue volunteering any and all information that could help us with the investigation and the search for MH370.”
In a controversial press conference, in which members of Chinese families of missing passengers were thrown out (see video, above), Mr Hishammuddin said that local and international experts had been examining a flight simulator found at the home of MH370’s pilot.
He said: “Local and international expertise have been recruited to examine the pilot’s flight simulator, some data has been deleted from the simulator and forensic work to retrieve this data is ongoing, I would like to take this opportunity to state that the passengers, the pilot and the crew remain innocent until proven otherwise.”
Some attention has been focused on the pilots after it emerged that a tracking system was turned off before the last verbal communication from the flight.
On Wednesday, a source close to the investigation also revealed that it is thought that the plane “went south” and is likely to have head into a remote area of the southern Indian Ocean.
An enormous search, involving 26 nations scouring two vast “corridors” where it is thought the plane may have travelled, has so far not found any trace of the aircraft.
Warning: the video above contains flash photography
Flight MH370 disappeared from civilian air traffic control screens on 8 March off Malaysia’s east coast – and investigators believe someone turned off tracking systems and turned the plane west. There were 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board.
Two arcs stretching from Laos towards the Caspian Sea in the north, and from west of Indonesia across the Indian Ocean in the south, are being searched.
“The working assumption is that it went south, and furthermore that it went to the southern end of that corridor,” said a source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Investigators have been trying to piece together information from military radar and satellites. Last week, a source familiar with official U.S. assessments said it was thought most likely the plane flew south, where it presumably would have run out of fuel and crashed into the sea.
People across the world have contributed to the search, scouring satellite images for any sign of the plane. On Tuesday, users of the social networking site Reddit said a satellite image posted online appeared to show debris from the missing flight.
China also said on Wednesday it had not yet found any sign of the aircraft crossing into its territory. Most of the passengers on the flight were Chinese, and on Tuesday families threatened to go on a hunger strike, complaining that they were not being given enough information by the Malaysian government.
