March 24, 2014
WASHINGTON: The US investigators is chasing down every theory in the missing Malaysian plane, the White House said on Sunday as possible debris of the jet were spotted by various satellites deep in the south Indian Ocean.
March 24, 2014
WASHINGTON: The US investigators is chasing down every theory in the missing Malaysian plane, the White House said on Sunday as possible debris of the jet were spotted by various satellites deep in the south Indian Ocean.
A Malaysia Airlines employee writes a message expressing prayers and wishes for passengers onboard missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. (AFP photo)
The US has put every asset it has to help Malaysian authorities try and get to the facts, US deputy national security advisor Tony Blinken said.
"We're chasing down every theory. We're looking at the facts as they develop. But again, the bottom line is we can't get ahead of the facts," Blinken told the CNN.
Officials of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the national transportation safety board are helping Malaysian authorities in the investigation; while the Pentagon has deployed its assets in the Indian Ocean, including a P-8 Poseidon surveillance plane, trying to find out what happened.
Blinken said: "But the bottom line is this: We need to get the facts, but we can't get ahead of the facts. And we do not know yet what happened to the plane, why it happened. We're working on it."
"And this is something that we're on every day in cooperation with Malaysians and with many other countries in the region. There is no prevailing theory," he said in response to a question.
"I would say, if there's anything encouraging to a tragic incident like this, is you have countries working together in ways that they haven't before — not just the Malaysians, but we have the South Koreans, the Chinese, the Australians, New Zealand, the US, Canada, all working in the same direction, which is to get to the bottom of what happened," Blinken said.
More planes from various countries, including India, today joined the hunt in the desolate area in the Indian Ocean, about 2,500 kilometres southwest of Perth, to trace Flight MH370 that disappeared from radar screen an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur on March 8.
The Beijing-bound Boeing 777-200 was carrying 239 people, including five Indians and an Indian-Canadian.
Meanwhile, Alan Diehl, former NTSB investigator told the Fox News that more search airplanes must be deployed in the region to find the plane.
"Obviously, there's a lot of debris out there, and we need a lot more resource than eight airplanes and 20-something ships. I think we need 48 airplanes and we need it quick. And I just hope that President (Barack) Obama is getting the right kind of information," he said.
"We have a fleet of P-3 Orions. They're older than the P-8s. They need to be out there looking. The US air force has MC-130s that have aerial refueling. They can stay on station a lot longer than the P-3s. That sort of equipment needs to be moved into the area to help identify what's on the surface," Diehl added.
"This is probably going to be a very long search, unless we just luck out and one of these P-3s or P-8s hears the pinger and we localize it quickly," he said.
Courtesy: PTI
