MH370: US search team extends Indian Ocean mission after failing to find Malaysian passenger jet
Flight 370 disappeared March 8, 2014, while en route from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing with 239 people aboard
The search for missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 has expanded into a new area, after exhausting the main search zone without finding the plane.
The search for MH370 will enter its final phase this week, more than four years after it disappeared.
Searchers have so far failed to find the plane, despite exhausting a 25,000km “priority area” that had been identified by Australian experts as MH370’s most likely resting place.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) had previously searched for MH370 for three years, but the operation was called off in January 2017 after no success.
In a December 2016 report, the ATSB and Australia’s scientific research agency CSIRO announced a 25,000 sq km area north of the original ATSB search should be the next place to look.
This was based on the discovery of confirmed MH370 debris on the east African coast, which prompted new ocean current drift analysis from CSIRO.