Satellite imaging company calls on the world to look for Malaysia Airlines clues

While the world is wondering what happened to the missing Malaysia Airlines jet, a US based satellite imaging company has launched its own search using crowdsourcing technology.

The company, DigitalGlobe has made available high-resolution images from the area on Sunday where evidence suggests the plane may have crashed into the water.

It is asking volunteers to log onto its Tomnod website and comb through the images with the hope that somebody can spot something of interest.

“For people who aren’t able to drive a boat through the Pacific Ocean to get to the Malaysian peninsula, or who can’t fly aeroplanes to look there, this is a way that they can contribute and try to help out,” DigitalGlobe’s Luke Barrington told US news network ABC News.

People can zoom in on each satellite image and drop a pin if they see anything that looks like wreckage. The system will then home in on where multiple tags have been pinned. Then expert analysts will then examine the top ten or so most notable areas and share the information with authorities.

“We’ll say ‘here are our top ten suspicious or interesting locations’,” Mr Barrington said. “Is it really an aircraft wing that’s been chopped in half or is this some other debris floating on the ocean? We may not be 100 per cent sure, but if this is where I had to go pick a location to go looking for needles in this big haystack, this is where I’d start.”

Presently, the images currently available are where the Gulf of Thailand meets the South China Sea. As the official search area is increased or changed, more satellite images will be made available.

The Tomnod website is no stranger to calling on the crowd to help previously.

Last June, more than 6,000 people logged on to the Tomnod site to search for a vintage yacht, The Nina, that vanished with its seven crew on board while sailing from New Zealand’s Bay of Islands to Newcastle in NSW.

The in last November, the site mapped the devastation after Typhoon Haiyan struck the Philippines with thousands helping identify more than 60,000 objects of interest of regions and landmarks that could have been affected within the first 24 hours.

We think that this is a pretty wonderful initiative and would love to know what you think of it too….

Also, will you be logging on to help the search?