Satellite images from Sunday are “still the most credible lead we have,” said Malaysia’s Defense and Transportation Minister Hishammuddin Hussein on Wednesday, in reference to the 122 possible objects shown southwest of Australia. “I’ll have to wait and see what reports come back from today’s search,” he said today, more than two weeks on. “This new information has just been relayed to them.”
The objects were scattered over 154 square miles and described as ranging from three feet to 75 feet long, seen by European satellites more than 1,500 miles from the shores of Perth. Some of the possible debris spotted, Hussein said, was bright, although he did not elaborate. (Metal, the New York Times guesses?)
While debris could be the beginning of some closure for victims’ families, it “may prove of limited use in locating the data recorders on the bottom of the ocean, oceanographers cautioned,” the Times reports. Bits of wreckage may have floated hundreds of miles, the rest of it up to 10,000 feet down, at the bottom of the South Indian Ocean.
In the meantime, the lawsuits are starting, NBC reports. The Chicago family of one man aboard the Malaysia Airlines flight has filed a petition for discovery, demanding design and manufacturing evidence from the airline and Boeing ahead of a potential suit. “We believe that both defendants named are responsible for the disaster of Flight MH370,” said the family’s attorney, from a firm specializing in aviation cases.
