“This does not mean we have given up on looking for MH370”, Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said at a press conference Friday, via CNN.
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Jacquita Gonzales, the wife of MH370 steward Patrick Gomes, said China and Malaysia had not contributed enough to the search effort, which is coordinated by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.
The oceanographer who led American adventurer Blaine Gibson to Madagascar where he found a potential debris field from the missing Malaysia Airlines jet says drift modeling suggests that Flight 370 could have crashed north of the current search area.
Australian Infrastructure and Transport Minister Darren Chester said the team continues to analyse data and inspect debris, but without any new evidence that could assist in locating the aircraft, “a further search is not viable”.
Grace Nathan, whose mother was among the passengers, said that they must keep their promise to continue the search until the plane is found. But experts agree the passage of time and distance has made them unusable as clues to the location of the plane.
The search, which has covered over 110,000sq km in the Indian Ocean, is now on hold due to bad weather and damage to equipment, but Liow said it was expected to resume in October.
That comes as a report in NY magazine revives the theory that the Malaysia Airlines pilot in control when the jet went missing shortly after takeoff from Kuala Lumpur had plotted a “suicide route” on the flight simulator at home.
Investigators searching the last 6,000 square mile area believe the plane was deliberately flown thousands of miles off course before it plummeted into the southern Indian Ocean off Australia.
But Jeanette Maguire, whose sister and brother-in-law Cathy and Bob Lawton, from Brisbane, Australia, were aboard Flight 370, said that while the decision is “very hard to accept”, she understood searchers needed more information to continue, “because it’s costing an absolute fortune”. Eight pieces of debris have yet to be analyzed.
Ms Jeanette Maguire, whose sister and brother-in-law, Cathy and Bob Lawton, from Brisbane, Australia, were on board MH370, said that while the decision is “very hard to accept” she understood searchers needed more information to continue “because it’s costing an absolute fortune”. “We have used the most high tech and the best people for this search”. “You could glide it for further than our search area is, so I believe the logical conclusion will be well maybe that is the other scenario”.
“The debris’ drifting modelling pattern showed that it was from the right search area”.
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‘At the moment, we don’t have any information to confirm that it was, ‘ he said. The search will be suspended if nothing is found. The ministers, however, added the search could be renewed later if substantial new information emerges to help guide the rescuers to the airliner’s final resting place. “But all of this needs time for compiling”, he said.
