Press conference in a few minutes. Current time is 12:30 am Eastern daylight savings time, watching Fox News. Announcement was made by Australian PM.
News alert at bottom of the hour. Orion aircraft due to arrive, along with a ship.
The AGO is Australian Intelligence.
This area is consistant with the new search area released by the Pentagon last night, within 100 miles, eastward. South, southwest of the western
shore of Australia.
Press conf now: begin transcription best I can-
Southern corridor search, have recvd sat imagery, recvd expert assessment this am, 20th of March. May not be related to missing aircraft.
Debris is south of search area, imagery is south of search are, was seen after sats were redirected.
Orion search craft arrived earlier, more sue today. U S Pesoeidon due to arrive as well. More Australian, and Hercules is scheduled to drop marker
bouys. This will help with water currents.
A merchant ship has responded. Another ship is on the way, and will assist with recovery.
Ships and aircraft will assist with search and recovery. Weather is moderate, but visibility is hampered. These objects may be difficult to locate,
and may have nothing to do with the missing craft.
The objects are of reasonable size. The largest is 24 (about 78 feet) meters, many in the general size. Some smaller.
Poor visibility in the area.
No sightings yet, though ships have arrived.
If an aircraft finds an object, it will contact ths merchant ship to locate the object.
The sat imagery was provided this morning. Was progressively captured.
It is credible enough to draw the search to this area, they have been in the business long enough, but not all searches result in findings.
AGO will continue to help.
The water at the location is very deep, aeveral thousand meters deep, speculating an abyssal plane, but will verify and get back.
Advice to families, they are doing their best to find survivors.
Don't want to draw too many conclusions, but havev used two different ways one US tracking of plane, and review of sat imagery.
Offers from other countries to help, but distance to rescue point has deemed what help has been accepted. Chinese have offered.
This is close enough to the TSB to an actual sighting to work out what the objects are.
This is debris out there, and can be containers from ships, on this particular area, the number of objects makes it worth inspecting. Will not
speculate, nor tell how many pieces.
The main blob is 24 meters, and the size of other objects are assessed against it.
They have to locate it, assess that it belongs to the aircraft, and bring it back.
The imagery is not precise enough to determine if it belongs to an aircraft or not. They are working to provide imagery to the public.
This is in the nature of search and rescue operations. They may get a sighting, they may not.
End of conference.
Approaching 4pm Thursday. Australian time.
edit on 19-3-2014 by Libertygal because: (no reason given)