A new search area has been announced for MH370, that disappeared in March. Australian officials have stated that the aircraft was “highly likely” to have been on autopilot before it crashed in the southern Indian Ocean.
Australian officials also stated that they expected the massive international search area to shift farther south this summer.
Today, Australia, Malaysia and China announced that a satellite working group defined a new search zone of up to 60,000 square kilometres along in the southern Indian Ocean.
Australia’s deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said, “Specialists have analyzed satellite communications information—information which was never initially intended to have the capability to track an aircraft—and performed extremely complex calculations. The new priority area is still focused on the seventh arc, where the aircraft last communicated with satellite. We are now shifting our attention to an area farther south along the arc based on these calculations.”
Truss also said it was “highly, highly likely that the aircraft was on autopilot, otherwise, it could not have followed the orderly path that has been identified through the satellite sightings.”