Searchers dismiss Australian exploration firm`s claim on MH370 wreckage?

Zee Media Bureau/Supriya Jha Adelaide: Fifty three days after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 went missing, an Australian firm on Tuesday claimed having spotted debris that might be possibly from the missing jet in the Bay of Bengal, reports said. The claim of finding the wreckage in the Bay of Bengal, 5000 km away from the current search zone, was made by an Adelaide-based exploration company named GeoResonance, reported the Star Online.

The Aussie exploration firm had reportedly started its own search for the missing jet on March 10 and used a slew of technologies including nuclear reactor to analyse the images obtained from satellites and aircraft to scour 2,000,000 sq km of the possible crash zone, says the report. According to GeoResonance, the company used the technology that generally assists in finding “nuclear warheads and submarines”. “The wreckage wasn’t there prior to the disappearance of MH370. We’re not trying to say it definitely is MH370. However, it is a lead we feel should be followed up,” the report quoted the company`s spokesperson David Pope as saying. According to an Australian news channel, the company`s claim is based on the detection of such elements in the Bay of Bengal, which go into the making of a Boeing 777 jet, like aluminium, titanium, copper, steel alloys, etc. However the claim by the Aussie company has been dismissed by the investigators, the CNN cited the Joint Agency of Coordination Centre (JACC) as saying. “The location specified by the GeoResonance report is not within the search arc derived from this data. The joint international team is satisfied that the final resting place of the missing aircraft is in the southerly portion of the search arc,” said the JACC according to the CNN. Malaysia too seemed to echo similar dismissal when Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said that “is working with its international partners to assess the credibility of this information.” Earlier, Hishammuddin had apparently ignored the claim as one of the “speculations” saying, “There have been too many speculations out there ... it is impossible to entertain them all,” the Star online reported. The claim by Australian firm comes at a time when Australian government has declared that a new intensive search phase will begin in the search for the missing plane that will take almost 6-8 months to finish. PM Tony Abbott yesterday announced that the search will enter a new phase that will cover an "entire probable impact zone" stretching over 56,000 square kilometres. The fresh phase of search for MH370 will cover a larger area of ocean floor and will deploy commercial contractors, added the PM.  Expressing disappointment over no trace of wreckage discovered so far, Australian PM had added that it was "highly unlikely" that any surface wreckage will be found from Flight MH370, but he said that underwater search will continue and Bluefin-21 will keep scouring the ocean floor.  Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared on March 8 with 239 people on board while en route to Beijing.