Dimensions of the Boeing 777-200ER Wing span: 60.9 metres Overall length: 63.7 metres Tail height: 18.5 metres Fuselage diameter: 6.19 metres

Malcolm Quekett from The West Australian Newspaper is one of the few reporters to have laid eyes on the search zone after joining an American team aboard a United States Navy P8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft that flew out of Perth yesterday. The veteran West Australian reporter told China Daily last night that while there were "a couple of exciting moments", ultimately the search for what might be debris from the missing flight was unsuccessful.

"We left (Perth) at 8.45am and arrived in the search area at about 11.45am," he said. "We flew at between 300ft and 1500ft in a grid pattern."

"There was an exciting moment when we thought we had something (picked up on radar), but it was a pod of dolphins."

"There was intermittent, low cloud that made visibility very difficult and there were places where visibility was so good you could have seen a dinner plate."

Quekett, who said the Americans continued to comb the area until 3pm before turning back for Perth, said after seeing the search operation and technology being employed first-hand, he felt confident that if the objects spotted by satellite were still floating, they would be found.

But whether the objects pictured in satellite imagery were in fact related to the missing fight was another story entirely.

"If that big chunk of stuff is floating where they say it is, I reckon they'll see it," he said. "They've got the best eyes on the job. But who knows what it (the objects spotted by satellite) actually is."