Search scientists know location of missing MH370 plane

CANBERRA, Australia –The saga for the search of missing MH370 plane is not yet over so it seems, despite past pronouncements the operation should have been minimized if not stopped already.

But no, on Wednesday, the Australian research team claimed they have narrowed the location of the missing MH370 flight to just a fraction of the ocean search area previously explored by Australian, Malaysian and Chinese authorities.

Speaking at the Australian Marine Sciences Association national conference in Darwin, David Griffin, said his team had continued analyzing drift modelling data well after the ocean search had concluded. They estimated that the plane went down along the “seventh arc.” Griffin is the head of the team from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization.

Griffin said, “There’s a strong current crossing across the seventh arc at (a latitude of) 35 degrees south, so we think the plane crashed into that current going to the north-west … That explains why debris didn’t arrive in Australia.”

In January, a joint statement from the governments of Australia, Malaysia and China said the ocean search for the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 would be suspended indefinitely until credible new evidence came to light.

MH370 was a scheduled commercial flight bound for Beijing from Kuala Lumpur but disappeared on March 8, 2014 with 239 passengers and crew on board.

During the active search which lasted for two years, the ocean operation have combed 120,000 square km patch of the Indian Ocean with no sign of the plane.

Griffin disclosed the researchers zeroed in on satellite data available for the flight date to determine the exact sea level height when the jet disappeared claiming they were able to learn the direction in which ocean currents flowed.

“So that’s the basis of how we know this current was flowing across the seventh arc at this time,” Griffin said at the conference.

While the information was passed on to the authorities in charge of the search of MH370, the (Australian) government has not yet mentioned whether or not the ocean search would resume. (with report from Xinhua)

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