Missing flight MH370 “most likely” lies north of a former search zone in the remote Indian Ocean, Australian authorities said on Friday, in a new report that offers hope the plane may one day be found.
A hunt for the Malaysia Airlines jet off Australia’s west coast was halted in January when no trace was found of the plane, which disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing three years ago carrying 239 people.
The Australian-led undersea search operated on the assumption that MH370 went down somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean. But relatives pleaded for the search to be extended following analysis by experts released in December that concluded the aircraft was not in the search zone but may be further north. Three fragments were also recovered from the plane outside the official search zone on western Indian Ocean shores.
The new report by Australia’s national science body CSIRO supported the northern theory using data and analysis from ocean testing of an actual Boeing 777 flaperon.
