Severe weather on Thursday, March 27, halted an air and sea search for a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet presumed crashed in the southern Indian Ocean, frustrating hopes of finding what new satellite images showed could be a large debris field, Reuters reports.
An international search team of 11 military and civilian aircraft and five ships had been heading to an area where more than 100 objects that could be from the Boeing 777 had been identified by French satellite pictures earlier this week.
"The forecast in the area was calling for severe icing, severe turbulence and near zero visibility," said Lieutenant Commander Adam Schantz, the officer in charge of the U.S. Navy Poseidon P8 maritime surveillance aircraft detachment.
"Anybody who's out there is coming home and all additional sorties from here are canceled."
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority, which is coordinating the operation, confirmed flights had been canceled and ships were leaving the search area due to the weather.
Flight MH370 is thought to have crashed on March 8 with the loss of all 239 people aboard after flying thousands of miles off course.
The latest satellite images were captured by France-based Airbus Defence & Space on Monday and showed 122 potential objects in a 400 sq km (155 sq mile) area of ocean.
"We have now had four separate satellite leads, from Australia, China and France, showing possible debris," Malaysian Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told a news conference in Kuala Lumpur late Wednesday. "It is now imperative that we link the debris to MH370."
The objects varied in size from one meter to 23 meters (75 ft) in length, he said.
