How Anyone With A Computer Can Help Search For The Missing Malaysian Airplane
Digital Globe has sent two satellites to scour search zones over the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea, and is broadcasting those images through tomnod.com. The website encourages viewers to look for any signs or clues that may point to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370's whereabouts.
The search area is huge, according to this map from CBS News. The plane may have changed course before it disappeared - meaning that two separate seas need to be searched. It's an area of thousands of square miles.
Onlookers on tonmod can tag areas of the images with labels, such as "Wreckage" for airplane remains, "Raft" to pinpoint life raft vessels visible in the water, "Oil Slicks" for traces of oil in the sea, and "Other" to mark miscellaneous objects that seem suspicious.
The Wall Street Journal reports that a satellite will make another pass over the area at 10 a.m. local time on Wednesday.
The flight, carrying 329 passengers, disappeared more than four days ago between Malaysia and Vietnam. A Vietnamn Navy aircraft spotted two large oil slicks measuring between 6 and 9 miles long in the area where the vessel is believed to have disappeared. However, there's no confirmation that these oil slicks are connected to the flight's disappearance.