Canberra, Australia: After 20 months of search operations, officials say the hunt for a missing Malaysian airliner has shifted to a remote part of the Indian Ocean where a British pilot believes the Boeing 777 made a controlled ditching last year with 239 people aboard.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is coordinating the search on Malaysia’s behalf, said on Monday that the patch of ocean southwest of Australia that Captain Simon Hardy has determined is the most likely resting place of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 will be searched through December.
Australian authorities, however, said they weren’t being guided by Hardy’s analysis, which has been widely published in recent months. Martin Dolan, the bureau’s chief commissioner, said the search was moving farther south because the southern hemisphere spring makes the extreme conditions in the southern ocean calmer. Australian authorities confirmed two search vessels had arrived in the area of Hardy’s proposed location last week, that is within the greater operations area, and will continue to search the area during the November-December period, News Corp reported on Monday.
“I am fairly confident that wreckage will be found within the next four to eight weeks,” Hardy told News Corp.
The March 2014 disappearance of MH370 while en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur with 239 passengers and crew has been puzzling the world’s aviation industry ever since.
The search effort has involved more than two dozen countries contributing planes, ships, submarines and satellites.
The team discovered a piece of wing flap on La Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean earlier this year, believed to be a part of the missing Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 jet.
The change in search area comes as Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said China would provide Australia with $20 million (Dh73.46 million) of additional search funds.