MH370 crash site could be north of search area, say investigators

SYDNEY: A team of international investigators hunting for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 said today they had concluded the plane was unlikely to be found in a stretch of the Indian Ocean search crews had been combing for two years, and may instead have crashed in an area farther to the north.

The conclusion raises the prospect that the search for the Boeing 777 could continue beyond next month, when crews are expected to finish their deep sea sonar hunt of the current search zone west of Australia.

The latest analysis of the plane’s whereabouts comes in a report from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau. The report is the result of a November meeting of international and Australian experts who re-examined all the data used to narrow down the search area for the Boeing 777, which vanished during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board.

In the years since the plane disappeared, experts have analysed a series of exchanges between the aircraft and a satellite to estimate a probable crash site.

Last month, the experts went back over the satellite data, along with the results of a new ocean drift analysis of the more than 20 items of debris likely to have come from the plane that have washed ashore on beaches throughout the Indian Ocean. The analysis suggested the debris originated in an area farther north along the arc from the current search zone. – ANA-AP