MH370 Search Area Recommended To Be Extended

December 20, 2016

Australian air safety investigators leading the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 now believe that the plane is not in the current search area in the southern Indian Ocean.

“There is a high degree of confidence that the previously identified underwater area searched to date does not contain the missing aircraft,” the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) said in a First Principles Review.

MH370 disappeared in March 2014 with 239 passengers and crew on board after taking off from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing. The search for the aircraft, a Boeing 777, extends over a 120,000 sq km area of the southern Indian Ocean.

The ATSB said “Given the elimination of this area, the experts identified an area of approximately 25,000 sq km as the area with the highest probability of containing the wreckage of the aircraft. The experts concluded that, if this area were to be searched, prospective areas for locating the aircraft wreckage, based on all the analysis to date, would be exhausted.”

Australia’s Transport Minister Darren Chester said the search is unlikely to be extended, however, as it “does not give a specific location of the missing aircraft.”

The three countries involved in the search, Malaysia, China and Australia have agreed it will be suspended if nothing is found.

Chester said in a statement “We will be suspending the search unless credible evidence is available that identifies the specific location of the aircraft.

“The search for MH370 has been the largest in aviation history and has tested the limits of technology, and the capacity of our experts and people at sea.”

(Airwise)