Nations searching for missing flight MH370 to meet on way forward

Senior officials from Malaysia, Australia and China will meet early next week to decide on the next step in the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet, while expressing confidence on Friday that the hunt was on the right track despite no wreckage being found so far.

Malaysian Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said that the challenges were huge but he told reporters, “I believe we will find MH370 sooner or later.”

Hishammuddin said he will travel to Canberra for the meeting on Monday on the approach forward regarding deployment of assets, engagement with victims’ families and expert and technical advice.

An unmanned sub continued to scan the Indian Ocean floor off western Australia where sounds consistent with a plane’s black box were detected in early April. Additional equipment is expected to be brought in within the next few weeks to scour an expanded underwater area. The aerial search for surface debris ended this week.

Angus Houston, the Australian head of the search operation, said he was confident the wreckage was in that area based on the most promising leads. He said, however, that the chance of the US Navy’s Bluefin 21 robotic sub finding the wreckage are “probability ... lower than it was when we started the search.”