Flight 370: Storm of emotions over lives 'lost' as storm at sea delays search
By Catherine E. Shoichet, Michael Pearson and Mitra Mobasherat, CNN
updated 9:28 PM EDT, Mon March 24, 2014
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- NEW: "It's almost felt like a miniature roller coaster within the day"
- Nasty weather forces officials to call off Tuesday's search for the plane
- Prime Minister says analysis of satellite data shows the plane went down in the Indian Ocean
- "They have told us all lives are lost," a relative of a missing passenger tells CNN
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (CNN) -- For families whose
loved ones were aboard the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, the past day
has been full of news they were dreading.
First, a grim-faced Malaysian Prime Minister confirmed their worst fears, announcing
Flight 370 went down somewhere in the Indian Ocean.
Then, even as
investigators seemed closer than ever to finding the plane, stormy
weather forced Australian authorities to call off a day of searching for
the Boeing 777.
"It's almost felt like a
miniature roller coaster within the day," said James Wood, whose brother
Philip was one of three American passengers on the plane.
Families are stuck in a "holding pattern," he told CNN's "AC360."
"We're just waiting and waiting," he said, "and not getting any answers one way or another."
Photos: The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
Experts: Flight ended west of Perth
Source: Flight 370 turned, dropped
An agonizing wait continues
They'll have to wait at
least a day longer. Gale-force winds, large waves, heavy rain and low
clouds forecast for the area "would make any air and sea search
activities hazardous and pose a risk to crew," the Australian Maritime
Safety Authority said Tuesday. Teams will resume searching Wednesday if
weather permits, officials said.
When they start looking
again, they'll be combing the remote area in the southern Indian Ocean
where officials now say they believe the flight ended.
New analysis of
satellite data by a British satellite company and accident investigators
led to that conclusion, Prime Minister Najib Razak said Monday.
"They have told us all lives are lost," a missing passenger's relative briefed by the airline in Beijing said.
Malaysia Airlines also
sent a text message to relatives saying "we have to assume beyond any
reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those onboard
survived."
While the last-minute
announcement appeared to end hopes of finding survivors more than two
weeks after the flight vanished, it left many key questions unanswered,
including what went wrong aboard the Beijing-bound airliner and the
location of its wreckage in the deep, wild ocean waters.
Flight 370 relative: This is a cover-up
Psychologist: Grief is shock, then anger
Families told all lives are lost
Families overcome after hearing the news
For families, some of whom had held out hope their relatives somehow were still alive, the news appeared to be devastating.
At a briefing for
relatives in Beijing, some were overcome and had to be taken from a
hotel on stretchers. In Kuala Lumpur, a woman walked out of a briefing
for families in tears.
"My son, my
daughter-in-law and granddaughter were all on board. All three family
members are gone. I am desperate!" a woman said outside the Beijing
briefing.
Another woman came out of the briefing room screaming, expressing doubts about the Malaysian conclusion.
"Where is the proof?" she said. "You haven't confirmed the suspected objects to tell us no one survived."
A committee representing
some of the families of the 154 Chinese and Taiwanese passengers aboard
the missing aircraft sharply criticized the Malaysian government in a
statement, accusing authorities of deliberate search delays and
cover-ups, China's state-run CCTV reported.
"If our 154 relatives
aboard lost their lives due to such reasons, then Malaysia Airlines, the
Malaysian government and the Malaysian military are the real murderers
that killed them," the statement said, according to CCTV.
Malaysian police have
interviewed more than 50 people in their investigation into the missing
plane, Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakal told
Malaysia's national news agency Bernama.
Four scenarios of what happened
He said police are
focusing on four possibilities about what happened: a potential
hijacking, sabotage, psychological issues or personal problems of the
passengers and/or crew.
"Such cases may take up to a year," Khalid said, "so please don't jump to conclusions that the police are slow."
While investigators have
yet to find even a piece of the plane, the Prime Minister based his
announcement on what he described as unprecedented analysis of satellite
data by British satellite provider Inmarsat and the British Air
Accidents Investigation Branch. He didn't describe the nature of the
analysis.
He said the data, drawn
from satellite pings the ill-fated airliner continued to send throughout
its final flight, made it clear that the plane's last position was in
the middle of the southern Indian Ocean, "far from any possible landing
sites."
He begged reporters to respect the privacy of relatives.
"For them, the past few weeks have been heartbreaking," he said. "I know this news must be harder still."
The airline said it was making plans to fly families to Australia once wreckage is found.
Are found objects part of MH370?
The deep sea robot search for 370
Two objects in the Indian Ocean
The announcement came
the same day as Australian officials said they had spotted two objects
in the southern Indian Ocean that could be related to the flight, which
has been missing since March 8 with 239 people aboard.
One object is "a gray or
green circular object," and the other is "an orange rectangular
object," the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said.
The Australian naval ship HMAS Success didn't turn up the objects when it searched Monday night, the authority said.
The objects are the
latest in a series of sightings, including "suspicious objects" reported
earlier Monday by a Chinese military plane that was searching in the
same area, authorities said.
A U.S. surveillance
plane sent to follow up was unable to find the objects, and so far, none
of the sightings has been definitively linked to Flight 370.
Ten aircraft -- from Australia, China, the United States and Japan -- searched the area Monday.
China said Monday after the Prime Minister's announcement that it would be sending more ships to help.
China has a particularly large stake: Its citizens made up about two-thirds of the passengers on the missing Boeing 777.
How Inmarsat found MH370's path
A look inside the search for MH370
Satellites helped focused the search
Amid a vast regional
search that at one point spanned nearly 3 million square miles,
searchers homed in on the southern Indian Ocean in recent days after
satellite images spotted a variety of unknown objects in an area roughly
1,500 miles southwest of Perth, Australia.
Australia reported the first images in the area, followed by China and France.
The area also lies on a
projected flight path for the aircraft calculated in part from the
satellite pings sent by the plane after other communications systems had
shut down.
Australian officials
have repeatedly warned that the objects may not be from the missing
plane. They could be containers that have fallen off cargo ships, for
example.
On Saturday, searchers
found a wooden pallet as well as strapping belts, Australian authorities
said. Hishammuddin said Monday that wooden pallets were among the items
on Flight 370. But such pallets are also common in the ocean shipping
industry, so it they may be unrelated to the flight.
The investigation into
the passenger jet's disappearance has already produced a wealth of false
leads and speculative theories. Previously, when the hunt was focused
on the South China Sea near where the plane dropped off civilian radar, a
number of sightings of debris proved to be unrelated to the search.
Plane said to have flown low
Monday's dramatic
developments came after a weekend during which other nuggets of
information emerged about the movements of the errant jetliner on the
night it vanished.
Military radar tracking
shows that after making a sharp turn over the South China Sea, the plane
changed altitude as it headed toward the Strait of Malacca, an official
close to the investigation into the missing flight told CNN.
The plane flew as low as
12,000 feet at some point before it disappeared from radar, according
to the official. It had reportedly been flying at a cruising altitude of
35,000 feet when contact was lost with air traffic control.
Also over the weekend,
Malaysian authorities said the last transmission from the missing
aircraft's reporting system showed it heading to Beijing -- a revelation
that appears to undercut the theory that someone reprogrammed the
plane's flight path before the co-pilot signed off with air traffic
controllers for the last time.
That reduces, but doesn't rule out, suspicions about foul play in the cockpit.
Authorities have said
pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah was highly experienced. On Monday, Malaysian
authorities said Flight 370 was co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid's sixth
flight in a Boeing 777, and the first time when he was not traveling
with an instructor pilot shadowing him.
"We do not see any problem with him," said Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya.
