Two weeks in, no sign of Malaysian airliner

Two weeks. Two gut-wrenching,
frustrating, mysterious weeks.
That's how long it's been since 227
passengers and 12 crew members
boarded Malaysia Airlines Flight 370,
destined for Beijing. A routine trip, it
seemed, to catch up relatives in time for
the weekend, start on a work
assignment or just get away.
Where they got to, still unknown. An
exhaustive search — covering a mind-
boggling 2.97 million square miles,
which is nearly the size of the
continental United States — has yielded
some clues, but no proof of where the
Boeing 777 is or definitively what
happened to it.
The latest, most notable lead revolved
around two large objects detected by
satellite Sunday floating on waters over
1,400 miles off of Australia's west coast.
The first of several Australian military
planes, as well as two long-range
commercial jets, resumed their search
Saturday morning to find any trace of
the objects, amid some skepticism that
they or ships in the area ever will and, if
they do, that whatever they find will be
related to the missing aircraft.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott
on Friday defended the decision to
announce the find, saying Australia
owes it to families of those missing "to
give them information as soon as it's to
hand." But he didn't make any
promises.
"It could just be a container that has
fallen off a ship," Abbott said during a
visit to Papua New Guinea. "We just
don't know."
On Friday, Hishammuddin Hussein,
Malaysia's interim transportation
minister, tried to reset expectations for
a quick resolution to the mystery after
the satellite discovery.
"This is going to be a long haul," he said.