World’s longest plane search to be suspended as MH370 hopes fade

Recovery operations in the southern Indian Ocean will be suspended after ships finish scouring the 120,000 square-kilometer (46,330 square miles) zone, ministers from Malaysia, China and Australia said in a statement Friday after meeting outside Kuala Lumpur.

In the absence of new evidence, Malaysia, Australia and China have collectively chose to suspend the search upon completion of the 120,000-square-kilometer (46,300-square-mile) search area.

Resuming the search would only be considered if “credible new information” emerges to pinpoint the specific location of the aircraft, according to a joint statement from the ministers.

After the plane disappeared in march of 2014 – with 239 passengers and crew aboard – Malaysian investigators seized the hard drives that Zaharie used to record sessions on “an elaborate home-built flight simulator”, the magazine said.

The aircraft has yet to be found despite massive search operations in southern Indian Ocean where it was believed to have rested after diverting from its original route.

Liow said the hunt in the remaining area has been delayed due to bad weather.

Liow Tiong Lai, Malaysia’s minister of transport, center, at a July 22 news conference in Putrajaya, Malaysia.

The search has so far cost 180 million Australian dollars ($135 million) – the most expensive in aviation history.

Immediately following its disappearance, a multi-national search effort began in the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea, which was where the aircraft was last seen on secondary radar. According to The New York Times, only a small area of approximately 10,000 square kilometers is left to be searched, which is, discouragingly, only around 8 percent in total.

Some relatives of those who went missing in 2014, many from China, had pressed for continuation and questioned whether the search was focused on the right area. “We want them to be doing something in the interim to look for new information”.

“We hope they will continue the search along the African coastline and if they don’t, we might start raising money ourselves and seek help from the people who live in those areas to be on the lookout for debris and we can offer them a reward if they find any credible items”, said Nathan.

The global rescue team searching for the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, lost since March 2014, has announced it will abandon operations if the plane is not found in the current search area. The search area was determined by analysis of satellite signals that the plane emitted in its final hours. It was the first debris confirmed to be from MH370. Those discoveries, however, haven’t brought much clarity to the mystery of where the plane may be.

“The end-of-flight scenarios are absolutely endless”, Fugro managing director Steve Duffield said. “However, the debris does not pinpoint the exact location of the aircraft”, Liow said.