Australia to continue searching for missing MH370 jet

Sydney, March 2 (IANS/EFE) Australia has no plans to discontinue its underwater search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 which went missing on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board somewhere in the Indian Ocean, said a government official on Monday.

"There are no discussions to suspend the search," Transport Minister Warren Truss's office told Efe news agency in an email.

Instead, discussions are about the search operations, added the official, dismissing earlier media reports claiming that Australia, Malaysia and China had considered calling off the search operations within a week.

Australian authorities, who are coordinating the operations where MH370 is believed to have crashed, have already swept 40 percent of the sea-bed extending over 60,000 square kilometres which falls in the priority area.

Until now, no remains of the Malaysian plane have been found and the incident is supposed to be one of the biggest mysteries in the history of civil aviation.

However, Australian authorities continue to remain cautiously optimistic about the operation.

"If, however, the plane is not found at the completion of the search... then we will discuss with Malaysia, China and potentially others on the next steps," according to Truss's office.

The area of the search operations is known as the seventh arc, which is a curve in front of the western coast of Australia where, experts calculate, the plane could have crashed into the Indian Ocean.

The Malaysian Airlines plane went missing after deliberately deviating from its route, according to experts, just 40 minutes after taking off from Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing.

--IANS/EFE

ab/dg