A group of experts striving to uncover the fate of the Malaysia Airlines passenger airliner that vanished nearly six years ago have pinpointed new areas where they believe the plane’s wreckage may be found, news.com.au reports.
According to the media outlet, scientists Victor Iannello, Bobby Ulich, Richard Godfrey and Andrew Banks have penned a paper called "Search Recommendation for MH370’s Debris Field" in which they pinpointed three areas where search crews should probably direct their attention.
"All possible MH370 end points of flight routes in any navigation mode and any speed mode have already been searched," the experts argued. "This means that MH370 has either been missed in a previous search or recovered from a steep descent … and glided out to an end point outside the previously searched area."
The three prospective search areas represent three different scenarios: the "highest priority" area is where the scientists theorize the plane must have ended up if there was no pilot input after fuel ran out; the area next in terms of priority deals with the possibility of a glide towards the south when fuel was exhausted; and the lowest priority area is where the plane may possibly be found “if there was a controlled glide in an arbitrary direction", as the media outlet puts it.
This development comes amid reports that a new attempt to find the missing plane may be initiated in the coming months.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared from radar screens with 239 passengers and crew on board on March 8, 2014, during a handover from Malaysian to Vietnamese air traffic controllers while on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
The search for the plane was suspended in 2017, with a second attempt launched in 2018 by the private contractor Ocean Infinity also coming up empty.
The ultimate fate of the missing airliner remains unknown, despite numerous theories about what happened to the plane emerging in the wake of its disappearance.
