Chinese aircraft Ilyushin Il-76, while searching the south Indian Ocean, spotted three suspicious objects that could potentially be part of the wreckage from the long-missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
The announcement came after China became more proactive in the search for the missing jet as the three-week-old hunt for the ill-fated wide-body jet has only caused frustration and agony for the family members of the passengers who are hoping against hope to find some clue of what could have actually happened to the flight.
The flight mysteriously disappeared on 8 March on its journey from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with 239 people onboard. 153 of them were Chinese.
The spotted floating items are white, red and orange in colur, China's Xinhua News Agency stated, citing a reporter aboard the military plane. A marker was dropped in the area and the Chinese crew has informed Australian authorities of the new findings, the agency added.
The latest development comes as two Chinese ships reached a new search area, located about 1,250 miles southwest of Perth, Australia. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said that Saturday's multinational search involved eight aircraft, with six ships expected to reach the area soon.
The sightings by the Chinese plane came at a time when New Zealand's Air Vice Marshall Kevin Short told the media that a cluster of 11 white rectangular objects are floating below the water surface some 1,600 km west of Perth, according to Australian Associated Press.
The objects were described as one-meter long rectangular pieces of material, which were within five meters away from one another, the general said.
Meanwhile, Australia Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on Saturday that a device for locating the black box will be ferried by an Australian navy ship and and will be taken to the search area of the missing plane.
"It will be taken to the most prospective search area and if there is good reason to deploy it, it will be deployed," he told reporters on Saturday morning in Sydney.
The new search area, said to be around 319,000 square km, is about four times bigger than the previous search area in the southern Indian Ocean. The area is also significantly bigger than the whole of United Kingdom taken together.
