‘MH370 search hasn’t covered most likely spot’

June 17, 2014 11:48 am | Updated November 17, 2021 04:57 am IST - London

Relatives of Chinese passengers onboard Malaysia Airlines jet during a candlelight vigil in Beijing. File photo

Relatives of Chinese passengers onboard Malaysia Airlines jet during a candlelight vigil in Beijing. File photo

The search for missing airliner MH370 has not yet investigated its most likely resting place, British satellite company Inmarsat has told the BBC .

The company estimated where the plane probably went down in the southern Indian Ocean based on the brief hourly connections it made to one of their satellites.

But the Australian ship dispatched to investigate stopped short of the location when it detected pings coming from another spot, and started searching there instead.

“It was by no means an unrealistic location but it was further to the north east than our area of highest probability,” Inmarsat’s Chris Ashton told the BBC .

Two months were spent combing 850 square kilometres of seabed around where searchers thought they had heard the pings from the plane’s flight recorders.

The Malaysia Airlines jet disappeared on March 8, one hour into a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, carrying 239 passengers and crew.

The Australian-led search team has paused its operation while a detailed map of the ocean floor is drawn up across a wider area than the initial search, before determining the best next step.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.