1 of 12. Lieutenant Clayton Hunt and Lieutenant (junior grade) Nicholas Horton, naval aviators assigned to Patrol Squadron (VP) 16, pilot a P-8A Poseidon during a mission to assist in search and rescue operations for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in this March 24, 2014 handout photo. 
 
 PERTH (Reuters) - An air search of the remote southern Indian Ocean resumed on Friday, seeking to confirm if hundreds of objects spotted by satellites are debris from a Malaysian jetliner presumed to have crashed almost three weeks ago with the loss of all on board. 
 
 A Chinese Ilyushin IL-76 took off from Perth before dawn, heading 2,500 km (1,550 miles) southwest into the search area where high winds and icy weather had halted flights on Thursday. 
 
 The disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines jet, which vanished from civilian radar screens less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur on a routine flight to Beijing on March 8, has gripped the world and baffled investigators. 
 
 Officials believe someone on board Flight MH370 may have shut off the plane's communications systems before flying it thousands of miles off course where it crashed into the ocean in one of the most isolated and foreboding regions on the planet. 
 
 Theories range from a hijacking to sabotage or a possible suicide by one of the pilots, but investigators have not ruled out technical problems. 
 
 The search zone centers on the latest sightings of possible wreckage that were captured by Thai and Japanese satellites in roughly the same frigid expanse of sea as earlier images reported by France, Australia and China. 
 
 "We detected floating objects, perhaps more than 300," Anond Snidvongs, the head of Thailand's space technology development agency, told Reuters. "We have never said that the pieces are part of MH370 but have so far identified them only as floating objects." 
 
 The U.S. Navy said it was sending a second P8 Poseidon maritime surveillance aircraft to help in the search for the missing Boeing 777. 
 
 "It's critical to continue searching for debris so we can reverse-forecast the wind, current and sea state since March 8th to recreate the position where MH370 possibly went into the water," said Commander Tom Moneymaker, a U.S. 7th Fleet oceanographer. 
 
 The United States has also sent a device that can be towed behind a ship to pick up faint pings from the plane's black box voice and data recorders, but time is running out. 
 
 "We've got to get this initial position right prior to deploying the Towed Pinger Locator since the MH370's black box has a limited battery life and we can't afford to lose time searching in the wrong area," Moneymaker said. 
 
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 The Australian Maritime Safety Authority, which is coordinating the effort, said it would give details later on the search after flights were halted on Thursday. 
 
 "It's the nature of search and rescue. It's a fickle beast," Flying Officer Peter Moore, the captain of an Australian AP-3C Orion, told Reuters aboard the plane after it turned around 1,000 km (600 miles) from the search zone. 
 
 "This is incredibly important to us. The reality is we have 239 people whose families want some information and closure." 
 
 The objects spotted by the Thai satellite on Monday were between 2 meters (6.5 ft) and 16 meters (52 ft) in size and were in an area around 2,700 km (1,680 miles) southwest of Perth, Snidvongs said. 
 
 The prolonged and so far fruitless search and investigation have taken a toll, with dozens of distraught relatives of 150 Chinese passengers clashing with police and accusing Malaysia of "delays and deception". 
 
 China has repeatedly voiced its frustration with the efforts of Malaysia to find the plane. China's special envoy to Malaysia said on Thursday that Beijing was doing its best to push the Southeast Asian nation to coordinate the international search effort, state news agency Xinhua said. 
 
 Chinese insurance companies have started paying compensation to the families of passengers, Xinhua reported separately. 
 
 A U.S.-based law firm has said it expects to represent families of more than half of the passengers in a lawsuit against the carrier and Boeing, alleging the plane had crashed due to mechanical failure. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Suilee Wee in Beijing, Niluksi Koswanage in Kuala Lumpur, Stanley White in Tokyo and Amy Sawitta Lefevre in Bangkok; Writing by Lincoln Feast and Alex Richardson; Editing by Dean Yates) ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The Thai satellite firm said the objects were yet to be identified 
 
 A Thai satellite has detected some 300 objects in an area of the southern Indian Ocean being searched for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. 
 
 The images were taken by the Thaichote satellite on 24 March, a day after images from a French satellite purported to show 122 floating objects. 
 
 Flight MH370 disappeared on 8 March with 239 people on board. No debris has been recovered from the ocean so far. 
 
 Searches by planes were suspended on Thursday because of poor visibility. 
 
 MH370 - Facts at a glance 8 March - Malaysia Airlines Kuala Lumpur-Beijing flight carrying 239 people disappears 
 
 Plane's transponder, which gives out location data, was switched off as it left Malaysian airspace 
 
 Satellite 'pings' indicate plane was still flying seven hours after satellite contact was lost 
 
 16 March - first satellite image of potential debris in southern Indian Ocean 
 
 24 March - Based on new calculations, Malaysian PM says "beyond reasonable doubt" that plane crashed in southern Indian Ocean with no survivors What we know The search for flight MH370 
 
 Ships are trying to continue the operation despite the bad weather, Australian officials said. 
 
 The latest Thai images were carried in The Nation and were said to show some 300 floating objects scattered over an area about 2,700km (1,680 miles) south-west of Perth. 
 
 The objects were about 200km (120 miles) from the site of the French satellite images. 
 
 The newspaper quoted officials as saying the information had been passed on to the Malaysian team involved in the search. 
 
 Anond Snidvongs, of Thailand's Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency, told the BBC the objects ranged from 2m to 15m (6.5ft to 50ft) in size. 
 
 He said he could not confirm they were debris from the plane. 
 
 The French images showed objects up to 23m (75ft) in length and were the first to suggest a debris field rather than just isolated objects. They had been described as the most credible lead so far. 
 
 Image caption The Thaichote images were taken on 24 March... 
 
 Image copyright MRSA Image caption ... a day after the French images. The two sites are about 200km apart 
 
 Image copyright Getty Images Image caption A P3 returns to Perth from the suspended air search. Bad weather may continue for 24 hours 
 
 Image copyright Reuters Image caption A slideshow tribute to victims in Beijing 
 
 The BBC's Paul Adams, in Kuala Lumpur, says the latest image forms part of a growing body of circumstantial evidence suggesting that it is in this inhospitable part of the Indian Ocean where the flight of MH370 came to an end. 
 
 The Thaichote is Thailand's Earth observation mission and was launched in 2008. 
 
 'Zero visibility' 
 
 Malaysia said on Monday that fresh analysis of satellite signals had shown that the plane had gone down in the southern Indian Ocean, with no survivors. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption BBC's Jonathan Head: "Experts are saying this is probably the most difficult search in modern aviation history" 
 
 The plane had been en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing when it disappeared from air traffic controllers' screens over the South China Sea. 
 
 The search is being coordinated by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (Amsa). 
 
 It said that aircraft had spotted three objects on Wednesday but despite several passes had not been able to relocate them. 
 
 Eleven planes were sent out again on Thursday. 
 
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 However, Amsa later tweeted: "Update: Ships staying in search area & will attempt to continue searching but all planes returning. Bad weather expected for next 24 hours." 
 
 Amsa spokesman Sam Cardwell said eight of the 11 planes had reached the search zone and looked for about two hours before the suspension. 
 
 He said: "They got a bit of time in, but it was not useful because there was no visibility." 
 
 Lt Cmdr Adam Schantz, in charge of the US Navy's Poseidon P8 plane, said: "The forecast in the area was calling for severe icing, severe turbulence and near-zero visibility. Anybody who's out there is coming home and all additional sorties from here are cancelled." 
 
 It is the second time this week the operation has been hampered by poor conditions. 
 
 The Australian Navy ship HMAS Success is in the search area and has been joined by five Chinese ships. 
 
 On Thursday, Beijing said it was sending another three vessels. 
 
 A total of six countries are now involved in the search - Australia, New Zealand, the US, Japan, China and South Korea. 
 
 Erik Van Sebille, an oceanographer from the University of New South Wales, told the BBC that if aircraft debris were found, experts could try to work out where the plane had crashed, although it would not be easy. 
 
 "This is home to the strongest current in the world," he said. 
 
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 The reasons why the plane deviated off course and lost contact with air traffic controllers remain a mystery. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The area is known as "the Roaring Forties" due to its strong winds 
 
 Investigators have ruled nothing out, including mechanical or electrical failure, hijacking, sabotage or deliberate action by the pilot or co-pilot. 
 
 On Wednesday, FBI chief James Comey said that analysis of data from a flight simulator taken from the home of pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah should be completed "within a day or two". 
 
 Some relatives of the flight's 153 Chinese passengers have refused to accept the Malaysian account of events and accused officials of withholding information. 
 
 A US-based law firm, Ribbeck Law, has said it expects to represent half of the families of missing passengers in a lawsuit against both Malaysia Airlines and Boeing Co, and has filed an initial petition. 
 
 Chinese insurance firms have begun to offer payouts to the relatives, state news agency Xinhua said. 
 
 On Thursday, Malaysia Airlines took out a full-page condolence advertisement in the New Straits Times, saying: "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." 
 
 Are you in the region? Email us at haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk adding 'Malaysia Airlines' in the subject heading and include your contact details. ||||| The crucial moments of doomed Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 may never be discovered experts have warned as the 'black box’ which records details of the flight may have over written key data. 
 
 As the search for wreckage of MH370 was bolstered on Wednesday by the detection of 122 “credible” floating objects in the Indian Ocean experts said the black box anyway may be “impossible” to find. 
 
 A United States black box detector being towed to the area is due to arrive on April 5, 28 days after the crash and just two days before the data recorder’s pinger is due to run out of battery life. 
 
 David Barry, an aviation specialist at Cranfield University, said the pings may continue for an extra ten days but the signal will weaken. He said the effort to find the box could take years. 
 
 “Given the remoteness of the site and the depth of the water and the weather down there, the black box will be almost impossible to find,” he told The Telegraph. “It will then be a case of digging through the wreckage field, possibly for a couple of years.” 
 
 A further difficulty for the crash investigators is that the crucial moment for understanding the unusual flight revolves around the period during which its communications systems were disabled and it took a sharp turn westward before flying silently for about seven hours. This occurred during the first hour of the flight, but the black box records cockpit communication on a two hour loop and deletes all but the final two hours. 
 
 Though the flight data will have survived, Mr Barry said, “the bit we are interested in – where they lost contact with air traffic control – would have been overridden unless power to the recorder was lost.” 
 
 On Wednesday Hishammuddin Hussein, Malaysia’s acting transport minister, said new satellite images had found objects ranging from 3 to 75 feet across an area of 154 square miles in the southern Indian Ocean. 
 
 He described the sighting of an apparent debris field as “the most credible lead we have so far”. 
 
 The images, captured through clouds by Airbus Defence and Space in France four days ago, were about 1,589 miles southwest of Perth in a remote stretch of the southern Indian Ocean. The zone tallies with previous images captured by United States and Chinese satellites. 
 
 “We cannot tell whether the potential objects are from MH370,” Mr Hishammuddin said. “Nevertheless, this is another new lead that will help direct the search operation.” 
 
 Twelve aircraft flew over the search area on Wednesday but spotted only three objects, including two items believed to be rope and a blue piece of flotsam. No wreckage has been found, nor any confirmed sign of the missing Malaysia Airlines aircraft, since it disappeared with 239 passengers and crew aboard after taking off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing on March 8. 
 
 Mr Hishammuddin said authorities have begun looking at the steps that will need to be taken after the crash site and wreckage are found. The top priority is to locate the black box which will help to explain the cause of the crash. 
 
 As the search continued, a multimillion-dollar lawsuit was initiated in the United States against Malaysia Airlines and Boeing. A firm representing families of the passengers filed a petition of discovery in Illinois, requiring the companies to produce evidence of possible flaws in the crashed Boeing 777. “We believe that both defendants named are responsible for the disaster of Flight MH370,” said Monica Kelly, the lead lawyer. ||||| World 
 
 Ahmad Seth Zaharie, 26, with his sister Aishah Zaharie (left), 27, and mother Faizah Khanum Mustafa Khan. 
 
 The son of the experienced pilot who flew the missing Malaysian Airlines flight has insisted his father was not the kind of man who would hijack a plane. 
 
 Ahmad Seth, the youngest of Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah's three children, told Malaysian media he has paid no attention to suggestions his father may have been involved in a hijacking or suicide mission. 
 
 “I've read everything online. But I've ignored all the speculation. I know my father better,” the 26-year-old student told the New Straits Times, an English-language newspaper in Malaysia. 
 
 The captain of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, Zaharie Ahmad Shah. Photo: Facebook 
 
 Amid the incessant theories about the flight, which disappeared on March 8, many have speculated about state of mind and political persuasions of the 53-year-old pilot at the controls of flight MH370. 
 
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 This week, a New Zealand publication claimed to have spoken to one of Captain Shah's friends who said the experienced pilot was going through a number of relationship problems and felt that his life was crumbling at the time of the ill-fated flight. 
 
 Shortly after the plane vanished, attention turned to whether Captain Shah or his co-pilot, Fariq Abdul Hamid, had deliberately crashed the jet as part of a suicide mission. 
 
 The political leanings and religious beliefs of Captain Shah have also been closely examined in the media. It has been claimed the captain was a political activist who attended the trial of Malaysia’s opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, just seven hours before he took control of the passenger jet. 
 
 "We may not be as close as he travels so much. But I understand him,” Mr Seth said. 
 
 He said the family was holding out for “the right confirmation” that the aircraft ended its journey in the southern Indian Ocean. 
 
 "I will believe it [that there are no survivors] when I see the proof in front of my eyes," he said. 
 
 He is the first of the pilot's immediate family members to speak publicly since the search began. 
 
 Captain Shah joined Malaysia Airlines in 1981 and was certified by Malaysia’s Department of Civil Aviation as a simulator test examiner. 
 
 He had 18,365 flying hours experience, and had installed a Boeing 777 flight simulator in his home, from which he made YouTube videos. 
 
 smh.com.au
– Another big lead, but yet more frustration in the hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: Officials say a Thai satellite has detected "300 objects of various sizes" floating near the search area in the Indian Ocean, reports the AP. Another set of satellite images released yesterday showed 122 "potential objects"—but severe weather prevented planes from searching the area today, Reuters reports. Some 11 military and civilian aircraft had been on the way to the area, but the forecast "was calling for severe icing, severe turbulence, and near-zero visibility," a US Navy spokesman says. "Anybody who's out there is coming home and all additional sorties from here are canceled." The latest images, together with the possible debris field spotted by a French satellite, add to what the BBC calls "a growing body of circumstantial evidence" suggesting the flight came down in a remote part of the Indian Ocean—though the Boeing 777's black boxes could now be hundreds of miles away from any floating debris. The son of pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah, meanwhile, has rejected claims his father may have been on a "suicide mission," reports the Sydney Morning Herald. "I've read everything online," says the 26-year-old, the first family member to speak out publicly. "But I've ignored all the speculation. I know my father better." A US Navy black box detector is on the way to the area, but experts fear the pinging will soon be too weak to detect, meaning it could be years before the mystery of the plane's disappearance can be solved. "Given the remoteness of the site and the depth of the water and the weather down there, the black box will be almost impossible to find," an aviation expert tells the Telegraph. "It will then be a case of digging through the wreckage field, possibly for a couple of years."