MH370 thrusts Inmarsat into spotlight

[LONDON] On an enormous electronic map of the globe in the modernist headquarters of a satellite company here, two green hexagons the size of dinner plates hovered off the west coast of Australia, revealing signals from an armada of ships and planes converged in the hunt for any remains of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

The searchers were there in large part because the company, Inmarsat, had produced an innovative analysis of a series of fleeting radio signals from the plane - picked up by one of its satellites in the hours after the jet, carrying 239 people, disappeared from radar screens on March 8.

Investigators say Inmarsat's findings were critical to establishing that the Boeing 777-200 almost certainly crashed into the southern Indian Ocean. And more than a month since the flight took off, they remain among the few clues that investigators have as they try to piece together what happened.