The search has lasted more than two years but has found no sign of the main wreckage.
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“In the absence of credible new evidence to assist in identifying the sitting location of the aircraft, a 3rd search is not viable”, said Darren Chester, Australia’s Minister of Infrastructure and Transportation.
Searchers at the Dutch company Fugro, which is leading the underwater hunt for MH370, said they believed the plane may have glided down to the sea rather than dived, meaning they have been scouring the wrong patch of ocean.
Grace Nathan, whose mother was among the passengers, said that they must keep their promise to continue the search until the plane is found.
Flight MH370 disappeared on March 2014 with 239 passengers and crew on board shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing, which later initiated a multi-national search at theSouthern Indian Ocean.
Because the plane’s black box flight recorders have never been found, what actually happened on board Flight MH370, as well as what transpired in the flight’s final, fateful moments, remain a total mystery.
Senior officials announced Friday that the global effort to locate MH370 will be suspended and rethought if the missing plane isn’t found in the remaining search area. “All I want is to have my family members back”.
Said Chinese Transport Minister Yang Chuantang: “Suspension does not mean the termination of the search work”. “Searching for the aircraft still is our priority”. The search has yielded little but scattered debris, found near Mauritius, Madagascar and Mozambique, between July 2015 and March 2016.
Days after, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak announced that the flaperon was from MH370, and that the flight had ended in the Indian Ocean. Eight pieces of debris have yet to be analyzed.
The search, originally scheduled to end in June, has been hampered by bad weather.
Liow also said the location where the debris were discovered was “consistent” with the MH370 drift modelling pattern, proving that the 120,000sq km search zone was right.
New information surfaced this week that the plane might have glided down from cruising altitude up to 200-kilometres outside of the current search area.
Media captionDarren Chester, Australian Transport Minister: “A further search is not now viable”.
“Everyone is entitled to their opinion”. “It was on a high rate of decent so should be located in the area”.
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The Voice 370 statement was issued as as transport ministers from Australia, China and Malaysia prepared for a meeting Friday that may dictate how much longer the search continues.
