A year on and we know nothing - MH370 search teams to go ‘back to drawing board’
EXPERTS searching for the missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 will have to rip up gathered evidence and START AGAIN from scratch if the plane is not found by May.
Nearly a year after the flight lost contact with air traffic controllers, the world still has no idea what brought the plane to its doom.
Malaysia’s transport minister said all data would need to be reviewed if nothing was found by the end of May.
Liow Tiong Lai said he remained cautiously optimistic that the plane was in the southern Indian Ocean where the search is being carried out, led by Australia, Malaysia and China.
The Boeing 777 lost contact with air traffic controllers on March 8 120 nautical miles off the east coast of Malaysia while carrying 239 people on a flight between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing.
Liow Tiong Lai said: "By the end of May, if we still can't find the plane, then we will have to go back to the drawing board.”
We need directions, we need plans, we need to review all the data that we have
When asked if the search may be halted altogether he said it was “too early to pre-empt anything now”.
He said: "We stand guided by the expert team.
"I am cautiously optimistic it should be in this area
He added: "We need directions, we need plans, we need to review all the data that we have."
The disaster was officially recorded as an accident in January.
Ships have been scouring 60,000-square-kilometers (23,166-square-miles) of the ocean floor off the coast of western Australia.
So far 10 hard objects have been found which need to be analysed. But other objects previously found have been rubbish and debris from cargo ships.
Australia, Malaysia and China would meet next month to discuss the next steps in the search.
Australian Transport Minister Warren Truss said last week that the search may not be able to go on “at this intensity forever”.
