Chris McLaughlin, senior vice president of external affairs at Inmarsat told Sky News : "Effectually we looked at the Doppler effect, which is the change in frequency, due to the movement of a satellite in its orbit. What that then gave us was a predicted path for the northerly route and a predicted path the southerly route."
"They've tested it off against a number of other aircraft known flights and come to the conclusion that only the southern route was possible."
"We refined that with the signals we got from other (777) aircraft and that then gives you a very, very good fit." "Previous aircraft provided a pattern and that pattern to the south is virtually what we got in our suggested estimates." "So the fit is very, very strong."
McLaughlin said the company was relying on a 1990s satellite over the Indian Ocean that wasn't GPS equipped. But scientists could work out the approximate direction of travel "plus or minus 100 miles to a track line".
"All we can do is to say we believe it is in this general location, but we can not give you the final few feet and inches of where it landed. It's just not that sort of system."The new calculated southern tracks for a ground speed of 400 and 450 knots ground speed.
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