partners who continue to process data in their own countries as well as in the international working group, have further refined their data. they have also come up with new technical information, for example, on aircraft performance. yesterday, this processed in new results, indicating that mh-370 flew at a higher speed than previously thought, which in turn means it used more fuel and could not travel as far. this information was passed to rcc australia by the ntsb to help further refine and narrow the search area. the australian authorities have indicated that they have shifted the search area approximately 1,100 kilometers to the northeast. because of ocean drift, this new search area could still be consistent with the potential objects identified by various satellite images over the past week. this work is ongoing, and we can
showed potential objects. these new satellite images joined those released by australia, by china, by france and malaysia, all of which are with rcc australia. the range of potential objects and the difficulty in reidentifying them shows just how complex this investigation is. we remain grateful to all our partners for continuing to assist in the search operations. ladies and gentlemen, the new search area, approximately 1,680 kilometers west of perth, remains in the australian area of responsibility. australia continues to lead the search efforts in this new area, and australian maritime safety authority gave a comprehensive operational update earlier today. as more information emerges, they will be issuing frequent operational updates, including on assets deployment.
interviews with the pilot and the co-pilot. they didn t say what those dwrae details were, but they have questioned more than 100 people in connection with this. cnn s andrew stevens is live in perth, australia. andrew, a lot of ships now headed to that area, it appears. reporter: that s right. it certainly sounds like there is, indeed. the focus gets ever sharper on this area, and it is all tying into this broader pattern that this does seem to be, obviously, the most important lead they have, but things do seem to be strengthening almost by the hour, certainly by the day. to have we had sightings by chinese aircraft into two objects of relatively big size in the search zone and several smaller objects located in a field roughly a few square miles around it. add that to the objects, smaller
two orange objects approximately one meter in length and one white-colored trunk were sighted by search aircraft but remain unidentified and have not been complicitly linked to mh-370. success detected two radar targets within the search area but could not locate the targets on further investigation of the area. earlier today, a chinese search plane reportedly sighted objects in the australian search area. these objects are not in the vicinity of those which were identified by the australian authorities last week. a few minutes ago, the prime minister received a call from the prime minister of australia, who informed him that an australian search aircraft had located two objects in the australian search area, one circular and one rectangular. hmas success is in the vicinity, and it is possible
basically, a featureless plane, to be slightly off course, which means you are going to miss those objects of extreme importance. yeah, no question about it. and also, as you were talking, we showed that map. just how far that plane was from kuala lumpur and, certainly, in the complete opposite direction from beijing, where it was headed. andrew stevens, thank you so much for us. we will get back to you shortly. just fascinating that, perhaps, they may have found at least two objects which potentially could be pieces of that plane. and the australian prime minister just moments ago calling the malaysian prime minister saying we have these objects in sight, we hope to have them in hand in the next few hours, if not in the next few hours, maybe tomorrow morning. so, clearly zeroing in on some debris, looking for that actual, physical identification of what it is and whether they are searching in the right space, whether they re even closer to finding out what happened. much more on t