Flight MH370: Why New Search Area Is Closer To Australia Than Previously Thought

Turns out that the search area where crews were looking for Flight MH370 during the week was off by a few hundred miles. Why?

The explanation is simple, Flight MH370 was traveling at a faster speed than originally thought, which means the plane ran out of fuel in an area north of where efforts have been taking place for the last few days, about 1,500-miles west of Perth.

Now, crews looking for Flight MH370 will move more than 600-miles to the northeast and closer to the Australian coast to continue their quest for those black boxes that could shed much needed evidence in this, one of the biggest mysteries in the history of aviation.

Planes that are part of the multi-national search and rescue mission to find the Malaysian airliner, spotted “multi-colored objects” in the area.

Ten planes were immediately re-directed to the approximately 123,000 square miles where the objects were seen on Friday, a part of the Indian Ocean where weather conditions are vastly improved from those rescuers battled, ever since it was determined that Flight MH370 met its fate in the southern part of the remote seas.

The new search area is also closer to the Australian coast, which means that planes and other vessels being used in the efforts to recover the wreckage of MH370 will be able to search for a longer period of time. Previously it took planes five-hours to reach the search area and thus they only had a couple of hours of searching ability before they had to head back to land and refuel.

According to a statement from the Australian Maritime and Safety Authority (AMSA), “five aircraft have spotted multiple objects of different colors.”

Picture: suspicious object spotted by New Zealand military plane on Friday. #MH370 pic.twitter.com/KWCt1zrv2k

— CCTVNEWS (@cctvnews) March 28, 2014

“Photographic imagery of the objects was captured and will be assessed overnight.”

“The objects cannot be verified or discounted as being from MH370 until they are relocated and recovered by ships.”

The AMSA says the change in search location was based on analysis of data from the Flight MH370’s final radar contact between the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca.

John Young, general manager of the AMSA emergency response division said:

“We will certainly get better time on scene. We started nearly 3,000 km (1,864.1 miles) from Perth so we’ve taken quite a lot off that. You might recall we were talking in terms of one to two hours on-scene. We’re now doing much better than that.

“The other benefit we get from the north is the search area has moved out of the roaring forties, which creates very adverse weather frequently. I’m not sure we’ll get perfect weather out there but it’s likely to be better more often than we’ve seen in the past.”

Saturday marks three-weeks since Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared after Malaysian air traffic controllers lost contact over the South China Sea. Radar information later determined the plane had turned around for unknown reasons, as the transponder and ACARS systems were turned off by someone in the cockpit.

[Image via Malaysianreview.com