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Search operations for possible debris from the downed Malaysia Airlines plane were suspended Thursday due to bad weather, Australian officials said, after the latest satellite images revealed 122 objects floating in the turbulent Indian Ocean.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority said all planes that headed for the search area in the southern Indian Ocean earlier Thursday were now returning to Perth. Ships, too, were leaving the area about 1,550 miles southwest of Perth that was buffeted by heavy rains and strong winds that brought low clouds and reduced visibility.
Malaysia Airlines on Thursday ran a full-page condolence advertisement with a black background in a major newspaper.
"Our sincerest condolences go out to the loved ones of the 239 passengers, friends and colleagues. Words alone cannot express our enormous sorrow and pain," read the advertisement in the New Straits Times.
Malaysian officials had announced Wednesday that a satellite has captured images of 122 objects in the Indian Ocean that might be from Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, missing since March 8.
According to acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, the objects were seen close to where three other satellites had previously detected possible aircraft debris. He added that the sightings are "the most credible lead that we have."
Hussein said the satellite images, which were taken Sunday and relayed by France-based Airbus Defense and Space, showed objects ranging in size from one to 25 yards in length.
“It must be emphasized that we cannot tell whether the potential objects are from MH370. Nevertheless, this is another new lead that will help direct the search operation,” Hussein said.
The hunt for Flight MH370 has turned up various floating objects spotted by planes and satellites, but thus far none have been retrieved or identified.
The desperate, multinational search for the jetliner, which disappeared en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur with 239 people on board, resumed on Wednesday after inclement weather over the Indian Ocean temporary halted efforts the previous day.
A total of 12 planes and two ships from the United States, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand are participating in the search, hoping to find even a single piece of the jet that could offer tangible evidence of a crash.
Malaysia announced Monday that a mathematical analysis of the final known satellite signals from the plane had proved beyond doubt it had gone down in the sea, taking the lives of all those on board.
The new data vastly shrank the search zone, but it remains substantial — an area estimated at 622,000 square miles, about the size of Alaska.
"We're throwing everything we have at this search," Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Wednesday. "This is about the most inaccessible spot imaginable. It's thousands of kilometers from anywhere," he said, before vowing that "we will do what we can to solve this riddle."
In Beijing, some families held out a glimmer of hope that their loved ones might have somehow survived.
About two-thirds of the missing people are Chinese, and their relatives have lashed out at Malaysia for essentially declaring passengers aboard Flight MH370 dead without evidence.
Many also believe that Malaysian officials have not been transparent or swift in communicating information to them about the status of the search.
Wang Chunjiang, whose brother was on the plane, said he felt "very conflicted."
"We want to know the truth, but we are afraid the debris of the plane should be found," he said while waiting at a hotel near the Beijing airport for a meeting with Malaysian officials. "If they find debris, then our last hope would be dashed. We will not have even the slightest hope."
In China's capital a day earlier, nearly 100 relatives and their supporters marched to the Malaysian Embassy, where they threw plastic water bottles, tried to rush the gate and chanted, "Tell the truth! Return our relatives!"
In a show of support for the families, Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered a special envoy to Kuala Lumpur to deal with the case, and Deputy Foreign Minister Xie Hangsheng told Malaysia's ambassador that China wanted to know exactly what led to the announcement that the plane had been lost, a statement on the Foreign Ministry's website said.
The plane's strange disappearance has proved to be one of the biggest mysteries in aviation.
Flight MH370 vanished from civilian radar screens less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur, and investigators believe someone on the flight may have shut off the plane's communications systems.
Partial military radar tracking showed it turning west and recrossing the Malay Peninsula, apparently under the control of a skilled pilot.
Malaysia's air force has released few details of its radar tracking beyond saying the plane was last detected off the northwest coast heading toward India.
Investigators will be looking at various possibilities, including mechanical or electrical failure, hijacking, sabotage, terrorism or issues related to the mental health of the pilots or someone else on board.
The search for the wreckage and the plane's flight data and cockpit voice recorders could take years because the ocean can extend to up to 23,000 feet deep in some parts. It took two years to find the black box from an Air France jet that went down in the Atlantic Ocean on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris in 2009, and in that situation searchers knew within days where the crash site was.
David Ferreira, an oceanographer at the University of Reading in Britain, said little is known about the detailed topography of the seabed where the plane is believed to have crashed.
"We know much more about the surface of the moon than we do about the ocean floor in that part of the Indian Ocean," Ferreira said.
Al Jazeera and wire services
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