MALAYSIA
Golfer has bad stomach to thank for missing flight MH370
A crew member aboard the Australian Navy ship, HMAS Success, can be seen through a window looking for debris in the southern Indian Ocean during the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in this picture released by the Australian Defence Force today. Australian search authorities say they are shifting the search area because of ‘new credible lead’. – Reuters pic, March 28, 2014.Professional Australian golfer Wayne Perske will never complain about a bad stomach again – after all, it saved his life after he changed his mind about boarding Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 bound for Beijing on March 8.
Perske had been due to take the flight to Beijing to join the Chinese PGA qualifying school but the 39-year-old father of two decided to fly home to Brisbane instead after suffering from a nasty bout of food poisoning, reported the Sydney Morning Herald.
“Too bloody close for comfort!” he tweeted on March 8, the day the plane disappeared. He told 2UE radio in Australia this morning that he was feeling “extremely lucky” to be at home with his wife and children.
“I obviously looked at the news (when I got to Brisbane) and saw, and it's just sort of escalated over the last however many days... just wondering what could have happened,” he said.
“It's a weird feeling. Having travelled the world for 15 years playing golf, it's one of those things that only happens to other people, you know, planes going down... As time goes on, I'm reflecting,” said the golfer.
The search for the wreckage of flight MH370 shifted today to an area 1,100km northeast of where planes and ships had been scouring the south Indian Ocean after "a new, credible lead", Australian authorities said today.
"The new information is based on continuing analysis of radar data between the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca before radar contact was lost," the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said.
"It indicated that the aircraft was travelling faster than previously estimated, resulting in increased fuel usage and reducing the possible distance the aircraft travelled south into the Indian Ocean."
The new search area is approximately 319,000 square kilometres and around 1,850km from Perth.
"ATSB (the Australian Transport Safety Bureau) advises the potential flight path may be the subject of further refinement as the international investigative team supporting the search continues their analysis," AMSA said, adding that Australia was repositioning its satellites to the new area.
It follows Thailand reporting yesterday a satellite sighting of hundreds of floating objects.
Japan also announced a satellite analysis indicated around 10 square floating objects in a similar area. They were the second pair of sightings in two days suggesting a possible debris field from the Boeing 777-200ER (9M-MRO), which vanished on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8.
Ten aircraft from six countries are involved in the search today with a further plane on standby.
Five Chinese ships and an Australian naval vessel were steaming to the new zone of interest, AMSA added. – March 28, 2014.
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