Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia said on Thursday that satellite images of suspected debris from a missing jet were yet another false lead, and debunked a report the plane had flown on for hours after losing contact — leaving the nearly week-old mystery no closer to being solved.
China had sparked talk of a breakthrough in the riddle of the Malaysia Airlines (MAS) jet with satellite images of three large floating objects near the place where the jet lost contact.
But Vietnamese and Malaysian planes that searched the area in the South China Sea on Thursday found no sign of the wreckage. Adding to confusion, the Wall Street Journal reported that US investigators suspected the plane flew for four hours after its last known contact with air traffic control at 1.30 am Malaysian time, based on data automatically sent from its Rolls Royce engines.
But Malaysia denied the report as “inaccurate”. “The last (data) transmission from the aircraft was at 0107 hours which indicated that everything was normal,” transport minister Hishammuddin Hussein told reporters.
“Rolls Royce and Boeing teams are here in Kuala Lumpur and have worked with MAS and investigation teams since Sunday. These issues have never been raised.”
He added that China had told Malaysia that the satellite photos were released “by mistake and did not show any debris”. Authorities have chased up all manner of leads, including oil slicks, a supposed life raft found at sea and even witness accounts of a night-time explosion, only to rule them all out.
“Every day it just seems like it’s an eternity,” Danica Weeks, whose husband Paul was on board, told CNN.
