Geoscience Australia has also analysed images of objects in the Indian Ocean, which were taken two weeks after the plane disappeared on March 8, 2014. “In 2014, some satellites saw items on the surface, but at that point, there were lots of sightings from satellites and none of those turned out to be relevant,” the CSIRO report’s co-author David Griffin added.
The report also places the most likely location of the aircraft with “unprecedented precision and certainty” at 35.6°S, 92.8°E — in the Indian Ocean, findings that are considered more precise than any previous analysis.
The objects in each of the satellite images were assessed based on appearance, shape and size and given a rank between one and five to determine whether they were natural or man-made items (With one being “probably natural” and five being “probably man-made”).
Objects that were given a rating of five were “bright objects with a strong rectilinear coherence, and seeming to displace the water around them”.
The findings come after research conducted by the CSIRO in April using a part of a Boeing 777 wing, called a flaperon, “sought to determine the movement of the doomed Malaysia Airlines plane and pinpoint its possible location to a 25,000 sq km area north of the original search zone.”
