MH370 search to be halted

Efforts could resume with new evidence: ministers

The hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 will be suspended if the aircraft is not found in an area now being searched, Malaysia, China and Australia said in a joint statement on Friday.

The Boeing 777 disappeared with 239 aboard – including 154 Chinese – in March 2014 while en route to Beijing from the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur.

Almost A$180 million ($135 million) has been spent since then on an underwater search spanning 120,000 square kilometers in the southern Indian Ocean.

“In the absence of new credible evidence, Malaysia, Australia and China have collectively agreed to suspend the search upon completion of the 120,000 square kilometer search,” Malaysian transport minister Liow Tiong Lai told a news conference, at which he read out the statement written by himself and his Chinese and Australian counterparts.

The families of those on board have pressed tirelessly for answers ever since the plane went missing, and they are likely to decry any suggestion that the search will end.

“Suspension does not mean a termination of the search work. In the future, should key information leading to the location of the aircraft emerge, it will be assessed to determine our next steps,” said Yang Chuantang, China’s transport minister.

Liow said the team is not “giving up on the search for MH370,” even if it does not find anything in the less than 10,000 square kilometers that remain to be searched.

“Should credible new information emerge which can be used to identify the specific location of the aircraft, consideration will be given in determining next steps,” the ministers said in the statement.

Investigators believe the plane was deliberately flown thousands of miles off course before crashing into the southern Indian Ocean off Australia. However, Malaysian investigators said in 2015 that there was noth- ing suspicious in the backgrounds of either pilots or crew.

Several pieces of aircraft wreckage that have washed up on beaches in Africa have been positively identified as coming from MH370, but they shed little light on the mystery.

“While acknowledging the significance of the debris, ministers noted that to date, none of it had provided information that positively identified the precise location of the aircraft,” the ministers said.

The search has lasted for more than two years but has found no sign of the main wreckage.

Searchers at the Dutch company leading the underwater hunt for MH370 said they believe the plane may have glided down to the sea rather than dived, meaning they have been scouring the wrong patch of ocean. That was the first time officials directly involved in the search have lent support to contested theories that someone was in control during the flight’s final moments.