Officials: Missing Malaysian Plane Crashed Into Indian Ocean

BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- All lives lost. After searching for more than two weeks, officials say new analysis indicates Malaysian Airlines flight 370 crashed into the Indian Ocean, killing all 239 on board. Now an international search effort is on to recover the wreckage of the plane and find out what caused it to go down.

Meghan McCorkell has more on the investigation.

While officials say they now believe the plane did crash, they still haven't been able to determine why.

After 17 brutal days, the last hope vanished for the family members of those on board Malaysia Airlines flight 370.

"Flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean," said Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.

A British satellite company received the final ping from the plane somewhere above the Indian Ocean. Officials say the aircraft would have run out of fuel in deep water west of Perth, Australia.

"It's the most remote and foreboding place on earth," said Baltimore-based aviation attorney Keith Franz.

He's confident crews will find the plane's flight data and cockpit recorders, but with ocean depths of up to 23,000 feet, it could take some time.

"It's almost as if someone wanted to put it there to make it very difficult, if not impossible, to find," he said.

On Monday, an Australian team flying over the suspected crash zone spotted two objects: one green and circular; the other an orange rectangle. So far, there's no word if they are part of the wreckage.

A Chinese crew also reported several objects floating in the same water.

Passengers' family members say they want definitive proof the plane went down.

"I just want to see some debris off the aircraft and the black box to know what exactly happened because there are too many unanswered questions," said Bimal Sharma, whose sister was on the plane.

The biggest question: what--or who--caused Flight 370 to crash.

Malaysian police say investigators have cleared all passengers of suspicion. The pilots and crew are still being investigated.

The search for the wreckage is really a race against time. The pinger on the black box could run out of battery within the next two weeks.

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