Mistakes and Mysteries

Scientists have identified a new, smaller search area for a Malaysian passenger airplane, which went missing in 2014.

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization released a report about the missing plane on Wednesday. The agency said it believed with great precision and certainty that Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 crashed in the southern Indian Ocean. It said scientists believe the plane, a Boeing 777, came down in waters northeast of an area that once was thought to be its final resting place.

Two years of searches failed to find evidence of the aircraft or the 239 people it was carrying. The plane disappeared on a flight from Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, to Beijing on March 8, 2014.

The new report identified a 25,000-square-kilometer area off the coast of Western Australia as a likely crash site. The scientific agency said its finding was based on satellite images taken two weeks after Flight MH370 went missing.

The scientists said the images—provided by France’s military intelligence service—showed about 70 objects floating in the water. They described some of the debris as probably man-made.

The agency said it thinks the new findings could now make it possible to identify a most-likely location of the aircraft.

The two-year search operation was a joint effort of Australia, China and Malaysia. The operation was called off in January. About $160 million was spent on the search efforts. It was not clear whether the new report would lead to any new search efforts.

The Australian government reacted cautiously to the new report. The Transport Safety Bureau said in a statement the scientists had not proven that objects seen in the images came from the Malaysian plane.

The disappearance of Flight MH370 has become one of the world's greatest flight mysteries. The plane is thought to have gone thousands of kilometers off course before crashing in the Indian Ocean.

So far, only three large pieces of debris that washed ashore from the ocean have been confirmed as coming from the missing plane.

Adapted from: https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/scientists-identify-new-possible-search-area-for-malaysia-airlines-flight-370/3988395.html