Object Sighted In New Search Area

Published March 28, 2014 at 12:05 PM CDT

Ground crew prepare to unload a Sea Hawk helicopter from a Royal Australia Air Force C-17 after it landed at RAAF Base Pearce to help with the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in Perth, Australia, Friday, March 28, 2014. Australian officials moved the search area for the lost Malaysian jetliner 1,100 kilometers (680 miles) to the northeast Friday, following a new analysis of radar data, and a plane quickly found objects that a ship set out to investigate. (Rob Griffith/AP)

A plane has spotted objects in the new search area for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

The sighting must be confirmed by ship, but that’s not expected to happen until tomorrow, according to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.

The new search area is northeast of the previous search area in the Indian Ocean. It’s closer to Australia, which means planes and ships can get to it faster.

However, it’s still a massively complex undertaking, the BBC’s Phil Mercer tells s Sacha Pfeiffer.

“The search area is bigger than the mass of Great Britain,” Mercer said. “It’s a huge task to go up and down. They call it lawn-mowing. They have a grid. The planes, they go up, they go down and they go across, just to make sure as much of that vast area of ocean is scoured.”

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Guest

Phil Mercer, reporter for the BBC in Perth, Australia. He tweets @philmercer.

Object Sighted In New Search Area

Guest

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