‘MH370 search hasn’t covered most likely spot’

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.