New map to locate missing flight MH370

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has unveiled a new map to locate the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, the Sydney Morning Herald reported Sunday.

Flight MH370 disappeared March 8 with 239 people on board en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing after which no trace of the ill-fated aircraft was found despite an extensive search in the southern Indian Ocean.

ATSB officials said that a survey of an area in the southern Indian Ocean by two ships using multi-beam sonar is almost complete and would provide an accurate contour map of the sea bed which in places is up to six km deep.

At the end of September, three ships - the Equator and Discovery owned by search company Fugro Survey Australia, and the Malaysian-contracted vessel GO Phoenix - will begin the search that could finally locate the missing aircraft.

Managing director of Fugro Steve Duffield, who has one year to search the 60,000 sq km priority zone, was upbeat that the technology was up to the job.

ATSB spokesman Daniel O'Malley said the search was critically reliant on complex, ground-breaking technical analysis of limited communications data and aircraft flight information.