The search for a missing Malaysia Airlines flight has resumed with weather conditions improving. Source: AAP
THE hunt for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has shifted more than a thousand kilometres from where teams had been scouring the Indian Ocean, but Australian authorities insist their previous efforts have not been a waste of time.
New radar data analysis has prompted authorities to re-focus the six-nation search 1100km to the northeast of its original location, and some 1850km west of Perth, following updated advice from the international investigation team in Malaysia.
Taking into account radar data before contact was lost, the likely performance of the aircraft, its speed and fuel consumption, and 21 days of drift, authorities are now searching an area about 319,000 square kilometres in size - almost as large as Malaysia itself.
The previous focus was in an area 2500km southwest of the West Australian capital.
"Continuing analysis indicates that the plane was travelling faster than was previously estimated, resulting in increased fuel usage, reducing the possible distance it travelled south into the Indian Ocean," Australian Transport Safety Bureau chief commissioner Martin Dolan said on Friday.
"This is our best estimate of the area in which the aircraft is likely to have crashed into the ocean."
He said the search area could change again as new information emerged.
Australian Maritime Safety Authority emergency response manager John Young said all search planes and ships had been moved to the new zone, which was "now our best place to go".
"We have moved on from those search areas to the newest credible lead," Mr Young said, adding however, that the decision to shift focus was not based on a new theory but a refining of the original analysis used to plot the location of the aircraft's possible resting place.
"The analysis is in fact the same form as we started with," he said.
"I don't count the original work a waste of time."
Mr Young also stressed, however, that he would not use the term "debris field" in relation to various objects spotted by satellite.
The new location will also allow search planes to spend more time on the scene. Previously, they only had one to two hours before having to return to RAAF Base Pearce.
Mr Young said weather conditions in the new search area were also more favourable.
"We will see what that does in terms of satellite imagery as the re-tasking of satellites starts to produce new material."
The new area is shallower, with water depths ranging from 2000 to 4000 metres.
Any wreckage found would be handed over to Malaysian authorities.
The new "credible lead" on a possible crash site, almost three weeks to the day since the plane carrying 239 people disappeared on March 8, also came with a warning from Malaysia Airlines of the effect on the families of rumours and speculation about the flight's fate.
"Whilst we understand that there will inevitably be speculation during this period, we do ask people to bear in mind the effect this has on the families of all those on board," the airline's group chief executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said.
"Their anguish and distress increases with each passing day, with each fresh rumour, and with each false or misleading report."
Mr Yahya said preparations were underway for family members of passengers and crew to be taken to Perth, should physical wreckage be found.
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