Searchers are reported to be considering they are looking for flight MH370 in the wrong place, as the hunt for the missing airliner continues to draw a blank.
“The thought of it landing somewhere else is possible as we have not found a single piece of debris that could be linked to MH370,” Malaysia’s New Straits Times quoted an official saying.
Members of the International Investigation Team (IIT) based in Kuala Lumpur were thinking of starting from the beginning in the search for the plane.
The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 with 239 people on board went missing on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8.
The possibility it landed somewhere other than in the current southern Indian Ocean search area was being considered, the Straits Times said.
“We may have to look into this if no positive results come back in the next few days – but at the same time the search mission in the Indian Ocean will go on,” an official said.
“The thought of it landing somewhere else is possible as we have not found a single piece of debris that could be linked to MH370.
“However, the possibility of a specific country hiding the plane when more than 20 nations are searching for it seems absurd.”
Pinger signals were picked up in the search area this month, with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott telling reporters he was confident the signals were from the aircraft’s black box flight recorder.
But unmanned submarine Bluefin-21 has failed to find any traces of the aircraft after scouring 80 per cent of an area targeted after the pings were picked up.
The sounds could have come from sources other than the emergency beacons, the Washington Post quoted Peter Herzig, executive director of the Geomar Helmholtz Centre for Oceanographic Research in Germany, as saying.
With all the planes and ships combing the Indian Ocean for signs of debris, it was unusual to draw a total blank, Herzig said.