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From the Oz on tomorrow's Tripartite meeting...

MH370 search to be reviewed at meeting in Kuala Lumpur


Steve Creedy

Aviation Editor
Sydney



The search area for ill-fated Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Source: Supplied

 

Every angle we've seen on MH370 2:28

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As it has unfolded, the mystery of missing flight MH370 and the incredible twists and turns in world news coverage.

 
Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss will meet his counterparts from China and Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur tomorrow to review the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.  

Mr Truss’s office declined to comment yesterday but Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said in statement that the ministers would be “reviewing the search efforts to date and collectively deciding on next steps based on advice by the experts from the search strategy working group’’.



Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss. Picture: Jack Tran Source: News Corp Australia 
 
The search has been underway in the southern Indian Ocean off Western Australia since last year and the four vessels now involved have covered about 61 per cent of the search area. The ships are searching a 60,000 sq km area deemed as the most likely crash site based on a complicated analysis of “handshakes’’ between an Inmarsat geostationary satellite and the plane.

The search of the high probability area is due to be completed by the end of May, depending on factors such as weather. The meeting, which will also include Chinese Transport Minister Yang Chuantang, will almost certainly discuss what will happen if no wreckage is found.

The Boeing 777 went missing on March 8 last year while travelling between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing with 239 passengers and crew on board. No wreckage has ever been found and the disappearance has become one of the great aviation mysteries. Searchers have also been looking at drift modelling to see if there is any way of determining where wreckage may have come ashore.

Australia has committed $90m to the search while Mr Liow said Malaysia had committed more than $60m.

The Malaysian minister said the parties were “wholeheartedly committed’’ to completing the search of the priority zone.

 
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