Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 went down over the southern Indian Ocean, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said Monday, citing a new analysis of satellite data by a British satellite company and accident investigators, and apparently ending hopes that anyone survived.
A relative of a missing passenger briefed by the airline in Beijing said, "They have told us all lives are lost."
Razak based his announcement on what he described as unprecedented analysis of satellite data sent by the plane by British satellite provider Inmarsat and the British Air Accidents Investigation Branch. He didn't describe the nature of the analysis.
But he said it made it clear that the plane's last position was in the middle of the remote southern Indian Ocean, "far from any possible landing sites."
He begged reporters to respect the privacy of relatives.
"For them, the past few weeks have been heartbreaking," he said. "I know this news must be harder still."
The announcement came the same day as Australian officials said they had spotted two objects in the southern Indian Ocean that could be related to the flight, which has been missing since March 8 with 239 people aboard.
One object is "a grey or green circular object," and the other is "an orange rectangular object," the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said.
The objects are the latest in a series of sightings, including "suspicious objects" reported earlier Monday by a Chinese military plane that was involved in search efforts in the same region, authorities said.
So far, nothing has been definitively linked to Flight 370.
24/03/14 Michael Pearson and Jethro Mullen/CNN
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A relative of a missing passenger briefed by the airline in Beijing said, "They have told us all lives are lost."
Razak based his announcement on what he described as unprecedented analysis of satellite data sent by the plane by British satellite provider Inmarsat and the British Air Accidents Investigation Branch. He didn't describe the nature of the analysis.
But he said it made it clear that the plane's last position was in the middle of the remote southern Indian Ocean, "far from any possible landing sites."
He begged reporters to respect the privacy of relatives.
"For them, the past few weeks have been heartbreaking," he said. "I know this news must be harder still."
The announcement came the same day as Australian officials said they had spotted two objects in the southern Indian Ocean that could be related to the flight, which has been missing since March 8 with 239 people aboard.
One object is "a grey or green circular object," and the other is "an orange rectangular object," the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said.
The objects are the latest in a series of sightings, including "suspicious objects" reported earlier Monday by a Chinese military plane that was involved in search efforts in the same region, authorities said.
So far, nothing has been definitively linked to Flight 370.
24/03/14 Michael Pearson and Jethro Mullen/CNN
