China has image of new debris as MH370 searchers brace for 'long haul'

Malaysia said Saturday that a Chinese satellite had spotted a large object along a broad stretch of ocean where officials hope to find a Malaysia Airlines plane that has been missing for more than two weeks.

Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told reporters Saturday that he had been informed that a Chinese satellite had spotted an object 74 feet by 43 feet.

‘‘The news that I just received is that the Chinese ambassador received a satellite image of a floating object in the southern corridor and they will be sending ships to verify,’’ he said.

State broadcaster CCTV tweeted an image of the object and said it was captured around noon Tuesday, about 75 miles south of another satellite image that was taken days earlier of two objects in the water.

Planes and ships have been searching the area of the earlier discovery for three days but have found nothing so far. Flight 370 went missing March 8 shortly after leaving Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing with 239 people on board.

After about a week of confusion, authorities said pings sent by the Boeing 777 for several hours after it disappeared from air traffic control screens indicated that the plane ended up in one of two huge arcs: a northern corridor stretching from Malaysia up to Central Asia, or a southern corridor that stretches toward Antarctica.

Three Australian planes took off at dawn Saturday for a third day of scouring a desolate stretch of the southern Indian Ocean for possible parts of the missing plane.

Officials are still cautioning the search will be a protracted operation, with Minister Hussein saying searchers were facing a "long haul."

Efforts by more than two dozen countries have thus far failed to uncover conclusive evidence as to what happened to the jet, with the apparent slow progress leading to frustration and fresh questions. Searches on Friday proved fruitless, despite improved weather conditions from a day earlier. 

Also on Friday, a purported transcript of the final conversations between the pilots of the plane and air traffic controllers was published by British newspaper the Daily Telegraph. They appear to show the last 54 minutes of air-to-ground recordings for Flight 370.

The log ends with the words "All right, good night," believed to have been spoken by the missing plane's co-pilot before the cockpit's contact to air traffic control was severed.

A satellite spotted two large objects in the area earlier this week, raising hopes of finding the Boeing 777 that disappeared March 8 with 239 people on board.

Six aircraft and two merchant ships were scouring the area on Saturday, although Australian officials have cautioned the objects, one up to 72 feet in length, may not be related to the missing aircraft or might have sunk. 

A small flotilla of ships from China is expected to arrive in the next few days. 

Officials with the Australian Maritime Safety Authority were also checking to see if there was any new satellite imagery that could provide more information. The images that led to the focus on the southern Indian Ocean were taken March 16, but the search in the area did not start until Thursday because it took time to analyze them.

Meanwhile, Malaysia has asked the U.S. for undersea surveillance equipment to help in the search, according to the Pentagon. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel promised to assess the availability of the technology and its usefulness in the search, a spokesman for the Department of Defense said.

The Pentagon says it has spent $2.5 million to operate ships and aircraft in the search and has budgeted another $1.5 million for the efforts.