Chinese Spot Possible Plane Wreckage Near Vietnam

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -- China's official Xinhua News Agency said Wednesday that a government website has satellite images of suspected debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines plane off the southern tip of Vietnam.

The report Wednesday says the images from around 11 a.m. on March 9 appear to show "three suspected floating objects" of varying sizes.

The report includes coordinates of a location in the sea off the southern tip of Vietnam and east of Malaysia, which apparently was part of the original search area after the plane disappeared early Saturday. The images were posted on a national defense technology website.

The Xinhua report says the largest of the suspected pieces of debris measures about 24 meters (79 feet) by 22 meters (72 feet).

The search for the missing plane, which left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing, has encompassed 35,800 square miles (92,600 square kilometers) of Southeast Asia and on Wednesday expanded toward India.

Two-thirds of the passengers on the flight were Chinese, and the Chinese government has put increasing pressure on Malaysian officials to find solve the mystery of the plane's disappearance.

Also, Wednesday, it was revealed that the last message from the cockpit of the missing flight was routine. "All right, good night," was the signoff transmitted to air traffic controllers five days ago.

Then the Boeing 777 vanished as it cruised over the South China Sea toward Vietnam, and nothing has been seen or heard of the jetliner since.

Those final words were picked up by controllers and relayed Wednesday in Beijing to anguished relatives of some of the 239 people aboard Flight MH370.

The new Chinese reports of the satellite images came after several days of sometimes confusing and conflicting statements from Malaysian officials.

Earlier Wednesday, the Malaysian military officially disclosed why it was searching on both sides of country: A review of military radar records showed what might have been the plane turning back and crossing westward into the Strait of Malacca.