Search of Malaysian MH370 to Continue Until Full Coverage of Crash Area

The team of investigators will further search for the debris of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, Malaysian Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The investigation team will continue its searches for the missing aircraft of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, until they fully cover the search area of the 120,000 square kilometers (over 74,500 square miles), Malaysian Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said Friday.

"The search will be continued as we are certain that more debris will be found in the area following the confirmation that the five pieces of debris found in Mozambique and Rodrigues Island near Mauritius were almost certain from MH370. So far we have completed 105,000 square kilometers [more than 65,000 square miles] and will continue to search until we complete the 120,000 square kilometers area identified by experts," the minister was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times newspaper.

Search area covered 99 percent of the flight's path and its boundaries were determined by investigators, he noted, adding that they would not shift it "as this was confirmed by our experts based the drift patterns of the recovered debris."

"We will chart the future of the search during the meeting after looking into the result of the 120,000 square kilometers search," Liow stressed, commenting on the possibility of expanding the search area.

The aircraft vanished while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014. There were 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board. The jet is believed to have crashed somewhere in a remote stretch of the southern Indian Ocean about 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles) off Australia`s west coast. So far, an underwater investigation of the plane has turned out a failure.