Ships Retrieve Objects in Missing Jet Search Area

The search for Flight 370 in its new search zone continues to produce tantalizing sightings, but no links to the plane so far. The latest comes from a Chinese military plane that spotted three suspicious objects today with colors that were at least a rough match for those of the Malaysian jet, reports AP. Australian and Chinese ships were retrieving those and other pieces of debris as quickly as possible for analysis, but it's no easy feat.

"It’s an inaccessible place," Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott told the media, reports the New York Times. "We are trying to find small bits of wreckage in a vast ocean, and while we are throwing everything we have at it, the task goes on.” NBC News, meanwhile, offers a glimmer of hope in regard to figuring out what happened: The plane's black boxes should be able to survive about two years even if submerged in salt water 20,000 feet deep, it says. The deepest part of the new search area is about 13,000 feet. (More Malaysia Airlines stories.)