Australian and Chinese search planes on Monday spotted more debris where satellite images had shown objects that could have come from the missing Malaysia Airlines jet.
But — on the 17th day of the frustrating search for answers about the flight and the 239 passengers and crew who were aboard — it was unclear if the debris came from the jet.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the crew of an Australian P3 Orion had located two objects in the search zone in the Indian Ocean — the first gray or green and circular, the second orange and rectangular.
“They could be flotsam,”Abbott said in Canberra. “Nevertheless we are hopeful that we can recover these objects soon and that they will take us a step closer to resolving this tragic mystery.”
An Australian naval supply ship, the HMAS Success, was on the scene Monday night trying to locate and recover the objects, and Malaysia’s Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said the vessel could reach them by Tuesday morning.
Separately, the crew aboard one of two Chinese IL-76 aircraft combing the search zone observed two large objects and several smaller ones spread across several square miles, the Xinhua News Agency reported. At least one of the items — a white, square object — was captured on a camera aboard the plane, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said.
“We are still racing against time,” Lei said. “As long as there is a glimmer of hope, our search efforts will carry on.”
China has redirected the icebreaker Snow Dragon toward the latest find, and that ship was due to arrive early Tuesday. Six other Chinese ships have been directed toward the search zone along with 20 fishing vessels that have been asked to help, Lei said.
Relatives of passengers aboard the missing Boeing 777 were avidly following news reports of the latest sightings, desperate for any word on the fate of their loved ones.
“We’re eager to learn more about this,” said Wang Zhen, who is staying at a hotel near Beijing. His father and mother, Wang Linshi and Xiong Yunming, were both aboard the flight as part of a group of Chinese artists touring Malaysia.
Satellite images and data released by Australia, China and France in recent days have identified possible debris in the area that may be linked to the disappearance of Flight MH370 on March 8.
The ocean depth in the search area ranges between 3,770 and 23,000 feet, and the US Pacific Command said it was sending a black box locator in case a debris field is found.
The Towed Pinger Locator, which is pulled behind a vessel at slow speeds, has highly sensitive listening capability, so that if the wreck site is located, it can hear the black box “pinger” down to a depth of about 20,000 feet, Cmdr. Chris Budde, a US Seventh Fleet operations officer, said in a statement.
“This movement is simply a prudent effort to preposition equipment and trained personnel closer to the search area so that if debris is found, we will be able to respond as quickly as possible, since the battery life of the black box’s pinger is limited,” Budde said.
An Australian defense official said an Australian naval support vessel, the Ocean Shield, was also moving into the search zone and would arrive in three or four days. The ship is equipped with acoustic detection equipment that can search for the missing plane’s black box.
There was no sign the move was linked to any breakthrough in the mystery of the plane, but rather as a preparation.
“The time for the battery life [of the ‘pinger’] is potentially only a month,” said Jason Middleton, aviation professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. “If debris was found, it would be terrible not to have anything on site and waste time” getting a ping detector to the region. “I think they’re planning ahead and getting it ready.”
Bad weather was threatening the search efforts in the area, about 1,550 miles southwest of Perth.
Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology reported increased winds, low clouds and a reduction in visibility.
On Tuesday, a cold front was expected to move through the search area from the west, bringing showers, more low clouds and less visibility. Tropical Cyclone Gillian, which is farther to the north, will not affect the area.
The search was given added momentum when a French satellite detected potential debris on Sunday, after Australia and China earlier released satellite images identifying suspect objects.
Australian Transport Minister Warren Truss said the French radar data located the objects about 520 miles north of the current search area, and that “we need to check that out as well.”
Australian authorities had sent planes and a ship to try to locate a wooden pallet that was spotted on Saturday from a search plane, but the spotters were unable to take photos of it.
Wooden pallets are most commonly used by ships but are also used in airplane cargo holds, and an official with Malaysia Airlines said Sunday night that Flight MH370 was, in fact, carrying wooden pallets.
The southern Indian Ocean is thought to be a potential area to find the jet because Malaysian authorities have said pings sent by the Boeing 777-200 for several hours after it disappeared indicated that the plane ended up in one of two huge arcs: a northern corridor stretching from Malaysia to Central Asia, or a southern corridor that stretches toward Antarctica.
Malaysian authorities have not ruled out any possible explanation for what happened to the jet, but have said the evidence so far suggests it was deliberately turned back across Malaysia to the Strait of Malacca, with its communications systems disabled. They are unsure what happened next.
Authorities are considering the possibilities of hijacking, sabotage, terrorism or issues related to the mental health of the pilots or someone else on board.
Malaysia’s police chief, Inspector General Khalid Abu Bakar, reiterated at a news conference Monday that all the passengers had been cleared of suspicion.
But he said the pilots and crew were still being investigated. He would not comment on whether investigators had recovered the files that were deleted a month earlier from the home flight simulator of the chief pilot.
In the US, Tony Blinken, President Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser, said on CNN: “There is no prevailing theory.”
“Publicly or privately, we don’t know,” he said. “We’re chasing down every theory.”