UPDATE: 3:35 PM EST
After Malaysian officials notified family members of passengers aboard Flight MH370 that the plane had indeed crashed via text message, the families released a joint statement regarding the fate of the missing flight:
SOURCE: Mashable
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On Monday morning, Malaysia Prime Minister Najib Razak held a press conference, announcing that missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 crashed in the southern Indian Ocean.
In front of media and family members of passengers on flight, Razak confirmed that there are no survivors of the flight, which has been missing since March. 8.
According to the data, the flight flew along the southern corridor and its last position was in the middle of the Indian Ocean, west of Perth, Australia.
Earlier in the day, authorities searching for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 may have found the lead they needed, after Australian and Chinese search teams spotted possible debris in the Indian Ocean.
The search planes, surveying in an area identified by multiple satellite images as containing possible debris from the missing Malaysian airliner, located the objects on Monday and are currently en route to recover the items.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the crew on board an Australian P3 Orion had located two objects in the search zone — the first grey or green and circular, the second orange and rectangular.
An Australian navy 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 within a few hours or by Tuesday morning.
Crew members aboard one of the two Chinese IL-76 aircraft also located two large objects and several smaller ones spread across several square kilometers (miles), Xinhua News Agency reported.
At least one of the items — a white, square-shaped object — was captured on a camera aboard the plane, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said.
“We are still racing against time,” Hong said at a ministry briefing. “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.
We’ll keep you updated with the latest developments in this bizarre case.
SOURCE: Huffington Post | VIDEO SOURCE: News, Inc./AP
