China spots possible plane crash debris in Indian Ocean
China has spotted in the southern Indian Ocean
possible debris from the Malaysia Airlines jet that disappeared two weeks ago.
The new potential sighting was dramatically announced by Malaysia's
acting transport minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, after he was handed a
note with details during a news conference in Kuala Lumpur, scooping the
official announcement from China.
"Chinese ships have been dispatched to the area," Hishammuddin told reporters.
China
said the object was 22 meters long (74ft) and 13 meters (43ft) wide,
and spotted around 120 km (75 miles) "south by west" of potential debris
reported by Australia off its west coast in the forbidding waters of
the southern Indian Ocean.
The image was captured by the
high-definition Earth observation satellite "Gaofen-1" early on March
18, two days after the Australian satellite picture was taken, China's
State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National
Defense (SASTIND) said on its website.
It could not easily be
determined from the blurred images whether the objects were the same,
but the Chinese photograph could depict a cluster of smaller objects, a
senior military officer from one of the 26 nations involved in the
search for the plane said.
The wing of a Boeing 777-200ER is
approximately 27 meters long and 14 meters wide at its base, according
to estimates derived from publicly available scale drawings. Its
fuselage is 63.7 meters long by 6.2 meters wide.
Hmmm.
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