KUALA LUMPUR, March 20 — Satellite images showing several “indistinct” objects provide the “best lead” investigators have in the search of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA).

It said it has directed search assets towards the location of the debris sighting some 2,500km off the coast of Perth in Western Australia, including three P3 Orions — two of its own and one from New Zealand — and a US P8 Poseidon.

“This is a lead, probably the best lead we have in the search, but we need to get there to see if it is related to MH370,” Emergency Response division general manager John Young said in a press conference in Canberra today.

Young said AMSA’s Research Coordination Centre (RCC) had first received the satellite images and an expert assessment from the Australian Geospatial-Intelligence organisation later confirmed the largest piece of debris to measure about 24 metres.

There were other debris spotted within the same field, which is south of the search area undertaken by Australia, but the maritime official would not reveal further details pending confirmation from search operators.

“They may not be related to the aircraft,” he said as he urged for caution amid the relentless spread of false speculation since MH370’s disappearance nearly two weeks ago.

Young said to help confirm the findings, Australia’s RCC has tasked a C-130 Hercules aircraft to drop datum marker buoys in the vicinity.

“These marker buoys assist RCC Australia by providing information about water movement to assist in drift modelling.

“They will provide an ongoing reference point if the task of relocating the objects becomes protracted,” he said.

Young reiterated that AMSA was “doing its level best” to locate any possible survivors and if the objects were found to be related to the aircraft it would put authorities in a “more accurate” search area than what they currently had to work with.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was headed to Beijing with 239 people when it lost contact with ground control shortly after take-off on the morning of March 8.

The wide-body Boeing 777 aircraft was at the time said to have disappeared from civilian radar at 1.30am when it was facing northeast to Vietnam, less than an hour after it left the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) at 12.41am.

At 7.24am that same day, one hour after the MH370 was due to arrive at the Beijing airport and over six hours after last contact, MAS issued a press statement to confirm the plane’s disappearance.

Malaysia has now become the target of criticisms from the world over as the search for the MH370 continues to wield no answers, irking the Chinese especially, who have 153 of their own on board the missing aircraft.

China’s Premier Li Keqiang had asked Malaysia’s Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to provide details about the missing flight “in a timely, accurate and comprehensive manner.”

Map locating the Indian Ocean where two objects possibly related to the search for Malaysia Airlines MH370 have been spotted, according to the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on March 20, 2014. — AFP graphics

Some desperate relatives have threatened to go on hunger strike in an attempt to get answers about the missing aircraft from Malaysian officials.