‘Back to drawing board’ if current MH370 search fails, Malaysia's transport minister says

The fruitless underwater hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 will "go back to the drawing board" unless results are found soon, Malaysia's transport minister announced yesterday.

Speaking on the eve of today's anniversary of the Boeing 777's disappearance, Liow Tiong Lai told journalists he remained cautiously optimistic that the aircraft was in the area of the Indian Ocean that was being searched. Of the 239 passengers and crew aboard the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, 153 were Chinese.

Should nothing turn up by the end of May, China, Malaysia and Australia will decide on a new plan, with the help of independent experts reviewing data from the Inmarsat satellite network, which was used to draw up the search zone.

"By the end of May, if we still can't find the plane, then we will have to go back to the drawing board," he said. "We rely on the expert group ... to come up with the plan. I am cautiously optimistic it should be in this area."

Malaysia declared the case an accident on January 29 and said the passengers and crew were declared dead.