Malaysia Airlines said Thursday that the search area for the missing Flight 370 will be expanded by another 60,000 square kilometres in the Indian Ocean if the jetliner is not found by May.
Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai told reporters that Malaysia, Australia and China, which are leading the search for the Boeing 777 that went missing on March 8 last year, are “committed to the search.”
He told reporters after meeting with his counterparts from the other two countries that so far 61 per cent of the 60,000 kilometre search area has been scoured off Australia’s west coast. The remaining area would have been searched by the end of May, he said.
“If the aircraft is not found within the 60,000 square kilometres, we have collectively decided to extend the search to another 60,000 square kilometres within the highest probability area,” he said.
Malaysia’s Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai, seen in 2014, said the next search area would bring the total search coverage to 95 per cent of the area of the plane’s flight plan. (Mohd Rasfan/AFP/Getty Images)
He said, the two areas together would cover 95 per cent of the flight path of the plane, which went missing while on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board. It dropped off radar, and investigators later figured out that it made a series of turns and headed in a completely opposite direction from where it was heading before crashing into the Indian Ocean.
“We are confident we are searching in the right area,” Australian Transport Minister Warren Truss said at the news conference, alongside Liow. “We are confident we have the best search equipment .. if the plane is in the area we will find it.”
He said Malaysia and Australia will continue to fund the cost of the next phase of the search. He or the other ministers did now say how much it would cost.
