Malaysia Air, Flight MH370, Flight MH370 crashed in south Indian Ocean' - Malaysia PM

Malaysia's prime minister has announced that missing flight MH370 crashed in the southern Indian Ocean.

Najib Razak said this was the conclusion of fresh analysis of satellite data tracking the flight.

[caption id="attachment_2027" align="alignnone" width="444"] Marker buoys in place where Mh370 Debris[/caption]

Malaysia Airlines had told the families of the 239 people on board, he said.

The BBC has seen a text message sent to families by the airline saying it had to be assumed "beyond reasonable doubt" that the plane was lost and there were no survivors.

"With deep sadness and regret I must inform you that, according to this new data, flight #MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean."
 

[caption id="attachment_2028" align="alignnone" width="445"] Search Planes drop marker buoys in place where debris is found[/caption]

There were 227 passengers on flight MH370, many of them Chinese.

Relatives of those on board who watched the announcement at a Beijing hotel wept with grief, and some were taken away on stretchers by medical teams.

mh370.

[caption id="attachment_2018" align="alignnone" width="590"] Japanese P-3C Orion aircraft on at RAAF Base Pearce.[/caption]

The crew of the Chinese IL-76 aircraft observed two large objects and several smaller ones spread across several square kilometresstate news agency Xinhua reported.

 

It is the third possible sighting in the area off western Australia that has become the focus of the search effort.


Australian and China radar echoes had picked up several objects about 2,300km (1,430 miles) from Perth, a statement added.

[caption id="attachment_2016" align="alignnone" width="590"] Malaysia MH370 Map with fuel range[/caption]

Flight MH370 disappeared on 8 March while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with 239 people on board.

The search for the Boeing-777 now in its third week, 10 aircraft are combing a huge patch of the southern Indian Ocean, with two Chinese military planes joining Australian, US, New Zealand and Japanese aircraft. More ships are on their way and the US is dispatching a specialised device to help locate aircraft flight data and cockpit voice recorders.

[caption id="attachment_2021" align="alignnone" width="590"] MH370 Sat Debris Photo[/caption]

The Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, said that the crew of an Australian P3 Orion had located two objects: the first grey or green and circular, the second orange and rectangular. An Australian navy supply ship, the HMAS Success, was on its way to attempt to recover the objects, with Malaysia's transport and defence minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, suggesting the vessel should reach them by Tuesday morning if not before.



But a US Navy P8 Poseidon was unable to find items seen by a Chinese plane earlier in the day, Australian search co-ordinators announced.