Kuala Lumpur, March 24 (RHC) -- Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak has announced that the missing Malaysian passenger jet crashed in the Southern Indian Ocean, killing all people onboard.

New satellite analysis from Britain had shown that Flight MH370, with 239 people on board, was last seen in the middle of the Indian Ocean west of Perth, Australia, he said in a statement.  "This is a remote location, far from any possible landing sites," Najib said.

"It is therefore with deep sadness and regret that I must inform you that, according to this new data, Flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean."

His comments came as an Australian navy ship was close to finding possible debris from the jetliner after a mounting number of sightings of floating objects that are believed to parts of the plane.

Flight MH370 vanished from civilian radar screens less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing on March 8th.  No confirmed sighting of the plane has been made since and there is no clue what went wrong.