China demands Malaysia hand over satellite data used to conclude Malaysia Airlines flight crashed

China demanded that Malaysia turn over the satellite data used to conclude that a Malaysia Airlines jetliner had crashed in the southern Indian Ocean killing everyone on board, as gale-force winds and heavy rain on Tuesday halted the search for any remains of the plane.

The weather is expected to improve later Tuesday for the multinational search being conducted out of Perth, Australia, to possibly resume Wednesday. But even then, the searchers face a monumental task of combing the vast expanse of choppy seas for suspected remnants of the aircraft sighted earlier.

“We’re not searching for a needle in a haystack — we’re still trying to define where the haystack is,” Australia’s deputy defense chief, Air Marshal Mark Binskin, told reporters in Perth at a military base as idled planes remained parked behind him.

In remarks to the Malaysian Parliament, Prime Minister Najib Razak also cautioned that the search will take a long time and “we will have to face unexpected and extraordinary challenges.”

Late Monday, Najib announced that the Boeing 777 had gone down in the sea with no survivor. But that’s all that investigators and the Malaysian government have been able to say with certainty about Flight 370’s fate since it disappeared on March 8 shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing. Left unanswered are many troubling questions about why it was so far off-course -- the plane essentially back-tracked its route over Malaysia and then traveled in the opposite direction in the Indian Ocean.

Investigators will be looking at various possibilities including possible mechanical or electrical failure, hijacking, sabotage, terrorism or issues related to the mental health of the pilots or someone else on board.