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Missing Jet: ‘White And Square Objects Found’

A Chinese search plane looking for missing flight MH370 finds “suspicious objects”, according to China’s official news agency.The “white and square” objects were spotted by searchers on board a Chinese Ilyushin-76 plane, Xinhua said.

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“The crew has reported the coordinates – 95.1113 degrees east and 42.5453 south – to the Australian command centre as well as Chinese icebreaker Xuelong, which is en route to the sea area,” Xinhua added.

Earlier, Xinhua said a Chinese military plane set off early this morning from the western Australian city of Perth to seek “suspicious debris” captured by satellite imagery in the remote waters.

It comes as the US Navy announced it is sending one of its high-tech black box detectors to the southern Indian Ocean being scoured for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet.

The Towed Pinger Locator, which is pulled behind a vessel at slow speeds, has highly sensitive listening capability so that if the wreck site is located, it can hear the black box pinger down to a depth of about 20,000 feet (6,100 metres).

The navy called the move a “precautionary measure” in case those sightings confirm the location of the aircraft which disappeared on March 8 with 239 people on board.

US Seventh Fleet Operations Officer Commander Chris Budde said in a statement: “If debris is found we will be able to respond as quickly as possible since the battery life of the black box’s pinger is limited.”

Meanwhile, Australian authorities are continuing to analyse French satellite images showing potential floating debris in the southern search area around 1,500 miles (2,500km) southwest of Perth.

It is the third possible sighting of debris in the area and occurred almost 600 miles north of the last report from the Chinese.

Speaking about the French sighting, Australian deputy prime minister Warren Truss said: “That’s not in the area that had been identified as the most likely place where the aircraft may have entered the sea. But having said all that we’ve got to check out all the options.”

On Saturday, the Chinese government released a satellite image showing a large floating object.

That object, measuring 74ft (22.5m) by 43ft (13m), was photographed on Tuesday just 75 miles from where two other potential pieces of debris were spotted by an Australian satellite.

Ten aircraft are now involved in fifth day of searching for the debris as rain is expected to hamper efforts.

Australian Transport Minister Warren Truss said “nothing of note” was found on Sunday, which he described as a “fruitless day”.

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