MH370 search: Why the search has been called off

Malcolm Turnbull grieves with families of MH370 victims and shares disappointment that the plane hasn’t been found.

A file photo of a graphic of the area being searched for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. Picture: AAP

Malcolm Turnbull has expressed his condolences to the families of those missing from Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, saying it is appropriate for the “unprecedented” search to be suspended.

Australia, China and Malaysia released a joint statement yesterday saying they had called off the two-and-a-half year mission, after a search of a 120,000 square kilometre high priority area 2500 kilometres off the West Australian coast was completed without success.

MH370 vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014 with 239 people on board, including six Australians.

Mr Turnbull said he grieved with the families of the victims and shared their deep disappointment that the plane hasn’t been found.

“There has been a massive search,” he said.

“It has been conducted with the best advice over the areas that were identified as the most likely to find the location of the aeroplane.

“There has been an agreement between the three countries involved, that at the conclusion of this program, the search will be suspended.”

Mr Turnbull said that if new evidence emerged that pointed to another locations, the three nations would consider searching there.

The Prime Minister had been asked to respond to comments from his predecessor Tony Abbott, who said he was disappointed the search was called off.

“Disappointed that the search for MH370 has been called off. Especially if some experts think there are better places to look,” Mr Abbott, who was in power at the time the flight went missing, wrote on Twitter.

Why call off search now?

Transport Minister Darren Chester says the question of whether to call of the search for missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 was difficult, and there was no perfect answer.

Australia, China and Malaysia released a joint statement yesterday saying they had called off the two-and-a-half year mission, after a search of the 120,000 square kilometre high priority search area 2500 kilometres off the West Australian coast was completed without success.

MH370 vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014 with 239 people on board, including six Australians.

Mr Chester said the decision had been made jointly with the other two countries involved.

He said that in July last year the Malaysian, Chinese and Australian governments had met in Malaysia and discussed the future of the search, deciding that if there was “no credible new information leading to a specific location of the aircraft” following the completion of the 120,000km search, the mission would be suspended.

Disappointed that the search for MH370 has been called off. Especially if some experts think there are better places to look.

— Tony Abbott (@TonyAbbottMHR) January 17, 2017

However, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau last month identified a 25,000km search area north of the 120,000km zone, raising the hopes of loved ones by saying the new area had the highest probability of containing the wreckage.

Mr Chester said identification of the 25,000km search area did not represent the kind of new, credible information which was likely to lead to a specific location.

“What we’re saying is we don’t have a specific location, even though the analysis would suggest that would be the next place you’d go to given we haven’t found it in that first 125,000 kilometres,” he told ABC radio.

From left to right: Peter Foley, Project Director for the Operational Search for MH370, Greg Hood, Chief Commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau and Federal Infrastructure and Transport Minister Darren Chester. Picture: AAP

“This isn’t a criticism of anyone or implying they’ve got it wrong by any stretch.

“They had very little information to begin with, in terms of data to actually work out their modelling from. There’s been pieces of debris wash up subsequent to the original search area, been identified, which would suggest we’re in the general vicinity, in the right area if you like, but it is a vast ocean.”

Mr Chester said search crews had battled ocean depths in excess of four kilometres and swells of 15m.

“It has been a heroic undertaking in terms of the search effort and while it has not been successful at this stage, and that’s disappointing and frustrating for everyone involved, particularly the families but also the people who’ve been involved from the ATSB and out on the search vessels,” he said.

“That doesn’t mean it hasn’t been an important undertaking or a very extraordinary effort by the nations involved in working together to try to solve this extraordinary aviation mystery.”

Mr Chester said the nations involved were “damned if they did and damned if they didn’t” continue the search.

“If you continue the search area you would quite rightly be asking me questions, ‘well why are you spending another $20, $30, $40 or $50 million of taxpayers’ money on a search which has already cost the governments in the order of $200 million?’, but by not continuing the search you’re quite rightly asking, ‘well, why not?’,” he said.

“It is a difficult question, there is no perfect answer to it.”

Mr Chester said international experts would continue to analyse data despite the search being called off.

“International experts have been brought together as part of the ATSB’s work to better analyse the limited data we had available to us, to work through the drift modelling of the debris that has been found, and in the future there’ll be more analysis of the debris, there’ll be more analysis of the drift patterns, there’s more detailed analysis of satellite imagery going on as well, so while the activity at sea may have been suspended there is still more working going on land in Australia, and we’re still very keen to work with international experts in that regard,” he said.

Brisbane man David Lawton, who lost his 57-year-old brother Robert, said he never thought the search would go on this long.

“It’s been hard, because, you know, you lose someone that you love in your family, he’s my only brother, and now there’s no hope that he’s ever going to be found so we can never have a proper funeral or anything like that,” he told ABC radio.

“We’ve been expecting it for a fair while now because the search has been going on for a long time and they hadn’t come up with nothing, so it can’t go on forever.”

Victims group Voices 370 has condemned the suspension, saying the countries were shirking an “inescapable duty” to extend the search to the new 25,000km area.

In a statement the group described Mr Chester’s position as “unfortunate, unilateral, premature” and tending to pre-empt any dialogue.

ATSB Chief Commissioner Greg Hood said that after searching the 120,000km zone in the southern Indian Ocean, over an area twice the size of Tasmania, the ATSB had a high degree of confidence the aircraft was not in the search area.