Search for Malaysia jet to resume further south

The search for the Malaysian Airline MH370 jet that disappeared March 8th will resume in a new area in the Indian Ocean further south after the operation was suspended late last month.

The search will be made in a zone as large as 60,000 square kilometres along an arc previously identified from the aircraft’s satellite communication, deputy Australian prime minister Warren Truss said in a statement today.

Martin Dolan, chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, said that “certainly for its path across the Indian Ocean, we are confident that the aircraft was operating on autopilot until it ran out of fuel”.

A 64-page report released by the Australian government has concluded the underwater search for the plane should resume in a new area.

Mr Truss said officials have not attempted to fix a moment when the plane was

put on autopilot.

Investigators from the US, UK and Australia and representatives of Boeing and Inmarsat have analysed satellite and plane data to define an area with the highest probability of finding the missing aircraft after operations were put on hold May 28th.

“The new priority area is still focused on the seventh arc, where the aircraft last communicated with satellite,” Mr Truss said. “We are now shifting our attention to an area further south along the arc based on these calculations.”

The new area will help provide a focus to the longest search operation in modern aviation history as a private company will be selected to resume scouring the ocean.

No trace of the Boeing 777-200 plane carrying 239 passengers and crew has been found since it vanished more than three months ago.

Chinese naval ship Zhu Kezhen and the privately hired MV Fugro Equator have been charting 60,000 square kilometres of the ocean floor.

Australia’s government is receiving bids from private companies by the end of this month for the deep-sea search that starts in August and could take as long as one year.

Bloomberg