At a press conference Monday night local time, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said that there was no hope for the recovery of the Malaysian Airlines flight that has been missing for two weeks.
"It is with deep sadness and regret, that according to this new data, flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean," Razak said at the press conference.
The Malaysian government conclusions, officials said, was based on information that indicated that Malaysian Air flight 370 had somehow crashed into the Indian Ocean. There is no hope for finding any of the passengers, Razak said.
Earlier, reports said that family members of several of those on the plane had been summoned to Australia for an “urgent consultation.” Images and video of families of the missing in China and elsewhere were seen breaking down and in tears. Some, reports said, refused to accept Razak's statement as the final word, believing there is hope that they are alive, but after the announcement it was unlikely that the large-scale searches that were being conducted until now will be continued.
According to sources, Malaysia concluded that the plane had been lost at sea based on a confluence of events, including identifying debris sighted by Chinese planes, and information it received from satellite company Inmarsat.
Several days ago, it was reported that satellite photos had shown several large “suspicious objects” that were thought to be large enough to be debris from a Boeing 777, the model plane that was carrying 239 people when it disappeared on March 8.
However, analysts said that the debris could be one of many things, as the area of the Indian Ocean where the debris was found has a significant amount of pollution from dumping of all sorts of things from ships.