The decision was announced by ministers of China, Malaysia and Australia, which have been leading the operation. In represents a change of thought because, in April a year ago, the countries’ representatives had agreed to end the search of the Indian Ocean seabed if no further credible information was found.
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Unfortunately, there has been no closure for the families of the 239 passengers and flight crew, who mysteriously disappeared aboard the plane in March 2014.
Transport ministers from Malaysia, China and Australia met in Putrajaya on Friday to discuss the future of the search, the biggest and most expensive in aviation history.
“New York has obtained a confidential document from the Malaysian police investigation into the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 that shows that the plane’s captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, conducted a simulated flight deep into the remote southern Indian Ocean less than a month before the plane vanished under uncannily similar circumstances”.
If indeed the Flight MH370 aircraft (pictured above, on an earlier flight), with serial number 9M-MRO, glided down into the Indian Ocean, then a conscious pilot had to be at the controls, the officials say.
“To date, none of it had provided information that positively identified the precise location of the aircraft”, the ministers noted.
“In the absence of new credible evidence, Malaysia, Australia and China have collectively agreed to suspend the search upon completion of the 120,000 sq-km search”, Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai, told a news conference, where he was with his Chinese and Australian counterparts.
Once the current 120,000 square foot search area of the Indian Ocean floor is completed, operations will be suspended.
“It’s great that they said suspend instead of terminate, but in the meantime what are they going to do and how long is this going to be suspended for?” asked Grace Nathan, whose mother was on the plane. This hypothesis, he added, is based on the assumption that the plane was being piloted when it went down. Malaysia has paid $80 million and has agreed to pay the balance of the final search cost.
‘At the moment, we don’t have any information to confirm that it was, ‘ he said.
Dutch geoscience and sea survey expert firm Fugro, which was contracted to provide three of its sonar-equipped vessels to search for the lost plane, has admitted yesterday that it may have been searching in the wrong area all along.
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The current search area was determined by an worldwide panel of scientists and engineers, under the theory that the aircraft, with 239 people on board, ran out of fuel and fell into the ocean.
