Day 152 — Fugro has won the tender of MH370's search

Dutch engineering firm Fugro will lead the search of the Indian Ocean seafloor where missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 is believed to have crashed, hoping to unlock the greatest mystery in modern aviation.

Australia on Wednesday awarded Fugro the lead commercial contract for the search, after months of hunting by up to two dozen countries revealed no trace of the missing Boeing 777.

Investigators say what little evidence they have to work with suggests the aeroplane was deliberately diverted thousands of kilometres before eventually crashing into the Indian Ocean off the coast of Western Australia.

The next phase of the search is expected to start within a month and take up to a year, focussing on a 60,000 sq km patch of ocean some 1,600 km west of Perth.

Australian Transport Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said Fugro was selected after "offering the best value-for-money technical solution" for the seafloor search.

"I remain cautiously optimistic that we will locate the missing aircraft within the priority search area," he told reporters in Canberra.

Fugro will use two vessels equipped with towed deep water vehicles carrying side scan sonar, multi beam echo sounders and video cameras to scour the seafloor, which is close to 5,000 m deep in places. Fugro will spend more than $52 million in the next year in the search for MH370.

The Dutch company is already conducting a detailed underwater mapping of the search area, along with a Chinese naval vessel.

"We haven't completed the mapping, so we are still discovering detailed features that we had no knowledge of, underwater volcanoes and various other things," said Martin Dolan, the head of the Australian Transport Safety Board, which is heading the search.

Day 129 — Suspicions of systems tampering

The independent researchers are now drawing attention to data that implies that the jet, with 239 people on board, flew in a circular or complex path for 52 minutes off the northern tip of Sumatra before then flying an apparently straight course southwards for more than four hours before running out of fuel off the Indian Ocean coast of Western Australia.

That previously unrecognized period of 62 minutes of untraced flight begins with a ‘strange’ message from the ACARS computer on board MH370 to an Inmarsat satellite consistent with there having been a temporary interruption to normal electrical power on the jet.

The next, and apparently normal standby signal exchange between MH370 and the satellite 73 minutes later occurs at a point calculated by the official investigation to be only 195 miles further northwest and immediately prior to the jet turning south.

However at the speed assumed by the official inquiry, MH370 would have covered that distance in a straight line in 21 minutes leaving 52 minutes of flight time unaccounted for.

Day 111 — New underwater search area announced

Australian officials released a 64-page report that concludes search operations should shift to an area 1,800 kilometers off the west coast of Australia.
Officials said they changed the search area after analyzing satellite data and that an underwater search would continue in the new area starting August. They also believe that the plane was on autopilot when it crashed.
"It is highly, highly likely that the aircraft was on autopilot otherwise it could not have followed the orderly path that has been identified through the satellite sightings," said Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss.
He announced a new high priority underwater search area for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370. The new search area of up to 60,000 square kilometres is located in the Southern Indian Ocean and, like previous searches, is located along the seventh arc – a thin but long line that marks where the missing aircraft last communicated with a satellite.

Day 102 — New search area recommended

A group of 10 independent researchers released a statement detailing their findings and recommendations regarding a new search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370. The scientists pored over the 45 pages of raw satellite data that Malaysian officials released last week, and conducted their own analysis to determine the most likely crash site of the doomed flight. Five separate computer models all place the plane in a tight cluster of spots in the south Indian Ocean — hundreds of miles southwest of the previous search site. "We recommend that the search for MH370 be focused in this area," the group said in a statement. "While there remain a number of uncertainties and some disagreements as to the interpretation of aspects of the data, our best estimates of a location of the aircraft (is) near 36.02 South 88.57 East," according to the statement, which was approved by 10 named experts.

Day 90 — The 7th arc

The latest information and analysis confirms that MH370 will be found in close proximity to the arc set out in the map and labelled as the 7th arc. At the time MH370 reached this arc, the aircraft is considered to have exhausted its fuel and to have been descending. As a result, the aircraft is unlikely to be more than 20 NM (38 km) to the west or 30 NM (55 km) to the east of the arc.

Refinement of the analysis in the coming weeks will reduce the underwater Search Area along this arc to a prioritised 17,500 sq. NM (60,000 sq. km). The prioritised length of the Search Area along the arc is expected to be 350 NM (650 km).

Day 89 — Underwater sound

Curtin University near Perth, Australia, on Wednesday released an audio clip captured by one of the listening devices, off of Perth. This underwater sound that they say could possibly be related to the final moments of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

The signal, which lasts just five seconds, was picked up by sound recorders off Rottnest Island just after 1.30am UTC on March 8.

"One signal has been detected on several receivers that could be related to the crash," said Alec Duncan with the university's Centre for Marine Science and Technology (CMST).

Researchers have been analyzing the very low frequency sound for weeks to see if it was "the impact of the aircraft on the water or the implosion of parts of the aircraft as it sank," Duncan said. "But (the source of the noise) is just as likely to be a natural event."

Low frequency signals can travel thousands of miles through water under favorable circumstances, at about 1 mile per second, Duncan said. But "at the moment (the sound) appears to be inconsistent with other data about the aircraft position," he said.

Day 88 — 'I saw MH370 on fire'

A British woman sailing across the Indian Ocean in March claims that she may have seen the lost Malaysian Boeing 777 aircraft on fire.

Katherine Tee was sailing from Cochin (India) to Phuket (Thailand) with her husband, Marc Horn, when she saw what appeared to be a large aircraft crossing the night sky, trailing a plume of black smoke.

Ms Tee was on night-watch on the couple’s 40ft sloop on the night of March 7-8 when flight MH370 vanished.

The couple have since re-checked their sailing logs and believe they were near one of the projected flight paths for the aircraft, which went missing on 8 March.

They have now filed a report to the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC), the Australian government agency running the search for the missing airliner, with the full track data for their voyage.

Tee claims there were also other planes visible that night. "There were two other planes well above it – moving the other way – at the time. They had normal navigation lights. I remember thinking that if it was a plane on fire that I was seeing, the other aircraft would report it."

MH370 was carrying a consignment of lithium-ion batteries with a "flammability hazard" warning on the packaging, but experts had previously ruled out fire as a cause for the disappearance.

Day 83 — End of the Bluefin-21 mission

The missing Malaysia Airlines plane is not in the Indian Ocean search zone where acoustic "pings" were detected, search co-ordinators have confirmed.

The acknowledgment came Wednesday as searchers wrapped up the first phase of their effort, having scanned 850 square kilometres of southern Indian Ocean floor without finding any wreckage from the Boeing 777-200. The Bluefin-21 was not able to look at one area in the northernmost ping area because of the depth of the water there.

Authorities now almost universally believe the pings did not come from the onboard data or cockpit voice recorders but instead came from some other man-made source unrelated to the jetliner that disappeared on March 8.

Australia said this week it will negotiate with private companies to conduct the next phase, which will resume in two months, if not later. That phase, which aims to scour about 60,000 square kilometers, probably won't start for at least two months.

This seafloor topography map illustrates jagged plateaus, ridges and other underwater features of a large area underneath the Indian Ocean where search efforts have focused since contact with Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was lost on March 8.

The new illustration of a 2,000 kilometer by 1,400 kilometer area where the plane might be shows locations on the seafloor corresponding to where acoustic signals from the airplane’s black boxes were reportedly detected at the surface by two vessels in the area. It also shows the two plateaus near where these “pings” were heard.

It points out the deepest point in the area: 7,883 meters (about five miles) underneath the sea in the Wallaby-Zenith Fracture Zone.

Seafloor topography in the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 search area. Dashed lines approximate the search zone for sonar pings emitted by the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder popularly called black boxes. The first sonar contact (black circle) was reportedly made by a Chinese vessel on the east flank of Batavia Plateau (B), where the shallowest point in the area (S) is at an estimated depth of 1637 meters. The next reported sonar contact (red circle) was made by an Australian vessel on the north flank of Zenith Plateau (Z). The deepest point in the area (D) lies in the Wallaby- Zenith Fracture Zone at an estimated depth of 7883 meters. The Wallaby Plateau (W) lies to the east of the Zenith Plateau. The shallowest point in the entire area shown here is on Broken Ridge (BR). Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) site 256 is marked by a gray dot. The inset in the top left shows the area’s location to the west of Australia.

Day 81 — Ping transmissions: Ran out of fuel?

The Malaysian government has today publicly published the final ping transmissions between Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 and an Inmarsat satellite that it was communicating with before it disappeared - so now anyone can investigate what happened to the aircraft.

Based on the same data, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau has also issued a report explaining that the plane most likely descended to its fate after running out of fuel. That's based on calculations of how long it took the plane to descend and modeling of fuel burn for different flight paths. Flight 370's final digital handshake with the satellite didn't coincide with previous regular hourly transmissions. That is likely due to its electrical systems resetting when the plane ran out of fuel, the ATSB summary said. It's still believed the plane crashed into the southern Indian Ocean, though all searches to date have proved fruitless. The conclusion comes as Australia's naval vessel Ocean Shield abandons its search on Wednesday - and a week before authorities open up the hunt to private contractors.

Day 74 — New life born

Wife of MH370 steward gives birth to baby boy. Happiness and radiance were etched on Intan Maizura Othman's face with the arrival of her bundle of joy. But there was still an apparent sadness behind her happiness as her husband, Flight MH370 steward Mohd Hazrin Hasnan was not present to welcome their second child together. Intan Maizura Othman, the wife of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 steward Mohd Hazrin Hasnan, has given birth to a baby boy. Muhammad was born at 4pm on Monday, 73 days after Mohd Hazrin went missing together with 238 others on board the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Born in Putrajaya Hospital, Muhammad is the second child of Mohd Hazrin and Intan Maizura, 34.

Day 56 — GeoResonance: False trace

Nothing has so far been found in the Bay of Bengal, with regard to a report by an Australian exploration company that it might have located the wreckage of the missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) MH370 aircraft.

Joint Action Coordination Centre (JACC) Chief Coordinator Angus Houston said: "Currently three Bangladeshi navy ships were scouring the area, with one of the ships equipped with echo sound capability to assist in ensuring a thorough search in that particular area."
“But I will say very quickly that I have the heaviest weight put on all the evidence that is before us, the great work that the world team here in Kuala Lumpur has found, the analysis of the manual handshakes between the aircraft and the satellite."
“And also, the stimulation work has been done to define the area in the southern Indian Ocean. I’m confident the area in the southern (Indian) ocean is the right search area and I’m sure that in time, we will find the aircraft in that area of the Indian Ocean” he said.

More and more seems to be proven that the company GeoResonance pseudo-scientific method is not a real solution. Their "remote sensing" called unspecified technique mostly belong to the notion of quackery. Described with reference to flight MH370 "discovery" is a bad taste advertising, taking advantage of the international attention for the lost Malaysian airplane. Find more evidence here:

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/debunked-exploration-company-georesonance-believes-it-may-have-found-mh370.3558/

Day 55 — MH370-ATC conversation

The Malaysian government has released the preliminary report with audio recordings of the communication between the cockpit and air traffic control on March 8 just before the aircraft lost contact.

Day 52 — New lead?

GeoResonance Ltd, a South Australian company and its team of scientists have invested considerable resources into the search for Malaysian Airlines flight MH370. The only motivation is to help the families of the missing passengers and crew, knowing the company has the technology capable of the task.

GeoResonance has discovered what they believe to be the wreckage of a commercial aircraft. The wreckage is located approximately 190km south of Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal. The wreckage is sitting on the seabed approximately 1000m to 1100m from the surface. The company is not declaring this is MH370, however it should be investigated. The search was completed using proven technology. In the past, it had been successfully applied to locate submersed structures, ships, munitions and aircraft. In some instances objects that were buried under layers of silt could not be identified by other means. At present the technology is being used with great success in the mining exploration industry.
In order to identify and locate subsurface substances, GeoResonance Remote Sensing analyses super-weak electromagnetic fields captured by airborne multispectral images. During the search for MH370, GeoResonance searched for chemical elements that make up a Boeing 777: aluminium, titanium, copper, steel alloys, jet fuel residue, and several other substances. The aim was to find a location where all those elements were present.
GeoResonance commenced the search before the official Search and Rescue operation moved to the Southern Indian Ocean. The multi-discipline team of 23 researchers, including 5 professors and 12 PhDs got involved in the project. The search used the imagery taken on March 10, 2014, and was conducted consecutively in 4 zones north and northwest of Malaysia, until all targeted elements produced an anomaly in one place in the Bay of Bengal.
GeoResonance completed analysis of multispectral imagery of the location taken on March 5, 2014. It established that the anomaly had appeared between the 5th and 10th of March 2014.

Day 47 — Object of interest

Unidentified material that has washed ashore in southwestern Australia is being examined for any link to the lost Malaysian plane. Police secured the metal item, which washed ashore near Augusta, on the country’s southwestern coastline. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau is examining photographs to assess whether further investigation is needed and if the material is relevant to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.










Next day the Australian authorities revealed that the "object of interest" found on the coast of western Australia is not related to the lost plane.

Day 41 — No oil link

The Australian authorities said that an oil slick detected in the search zone and collected by the Australian vessel Ocean Shield was not engine oil or hydraulic fluid from an aircraft.

The sample was collected Sunday night more than three miles from the area where Ocean Shield had picked up underwater acoustic signals.

Day 38 — Go underwater

No underwater pulses detected in almost a week. Ocean Shield will cease searching with the towed pinger locator later today (Monday) and deploy the autonomous underwater vehicle Bluefin-21. It's a probe equipped with side-scan sonar -- acoustic technology that creates pictures from the reflections of sound rather than light. Each deployment will last 24 hours. It will take two hours for the Bluefin-21 to get down to the bottom of the ocean. Then it will scour the ocean bed for 16 hours, and take another two hours to resurface. It will take take another four hours to download and analyze the data collected.

The Australian ship Ocean Shield detected an oil slick Sunday evening, but it is unclear where the oil came from. A 2-liter sample has been collected for examination, but it will take a few days.

Day 33 — Two more signals

Australian officials said that two new "ping" signals had been detected in the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370. They have confirmed that the pulse signals in the southern Indian Ocean are from a man-made device and are not natural sounds from the sea. He said that he believes the Malaysian jet could be found
 within
 days.

The first signal, at 4:45pm Perth Time on Saturday, lasted 2 hours 20 minutes.

The second, at 9:27pm Saturday, lasted 13 minutes.

The third signal was picked up Tuesday at 4:27pm. That lasted 5 minutes 32 seconds.

The fourth,
at 10:17pm
Tuesday,
was 7
minutes
long.

Day 30 — Signals from Ocean Shield

The Australian defence vessel Ocean Shield detected two separate signals within the northern part of the search area. The first detection lasted two hours and 20 minutes, and the second lasted 13 minutes. Significantly this would be consistent with transmissions from both the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder. The vessel is continuing to monitor the area to relocate the signal.

Even with the black box batteries estimated to expire today, the International task force continues to search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, looking for any sign of the missing airliner.

Day 29 — Signal from Hai Xun 01

The Chinese vessel "Hai Xun 01" searching the Indian Ocean for flight MH370 detected a signal at a frequency used by the missing aircraft's black boxes on Saturday, but Australia warned there was no evidence yet that it was linked to the plane.

Day 28 — Ocean Shield

Australian navy vessel Ocean Shield, equipped with US-supplied black box detectors, nears the search area. The black box's one-month battery life is set to expire soon.

Day 25 — Transcript of the communications

The Malaysian authorities has released the full transcript of the communication between the missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) MH370 flight and the Kuala Lumpur Air Traffic Control.

KUALA LUMPUR: “Good night Malaysian three seven zero”

That was the last conversation in the transcript between the air traffic controller (ATC) and the cockpit at 1.19am (Malaysian Time) as confirmed. Earlier reports stated that the last radio message from the plane – an informal “All right, goodnight” – was spoken before the tracking system, known as ACARS, was shut down.

Day 22 — What we know

Day 20 — Many theories but few facts

More than two weeks passed between the recognition of the aircraft’s disappearance and the satellite data analysis that seems to have ended the disproportion of theory to knowledge.

Between the few hard facts that this tragedy admitted, there was much theorizing and speculating about what happened, and where the airplane went.

3/8 CNN Search intensifies for Malaysian airliner and 239 people, rescue ships head to sea

“It [Flight MH370] has disappeared from radar. We know the nationalities of the people on board.

3/9 The Guardian Malaysia Airlines: object found by Vietnam navy thought to be part of missing plane

“No wreckage has been found of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 which went missing early on Saturday morning.At a press conference on Sunday morning, Malaysia’s transport minister, Hishamuddin Hussein, revealed that the identities of four passengers aboard the missing Malaysia Airlines flight are under investigation.He also said that radar showed the plane may have turned back in mid-air.

3/10 The Guardian Malaysia Airlines flight MH370: officials widen search area

“Search area widened Official says men on stolen passports looked like ‘Balotelli’ Hijacking not being ruled out. Oil slick and yellow object prove to be false alarms

3/11 Wired How It’s Possible to Lose an Airplane in 2014

“It is still possible–although rare–for an airliner to seemingly vanish. “The simple hard truth is it’s very difficult to find things in the water,” said retired Col. J. Joseph, a former Marine Corps pilot and aviation consultant.

3/12 AOL Last words from missing plane were routine

“The last message from the cockpit of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight was routine. “All right, good night,” was the signoff transmitted to air traffic controllers five days ago. Then the Boeing 777 vanished as it cruised over the South China Sea toward Vietnam, and nothing has been seen or heard of the jetliner since.

3/13 CNN Search for missing Malaysia Airlines plane expands to Indian Ocean

“New information, U.S. officials told CNN, indicates the missing airplane could have flown for several hours beyond the last transponder reading. Malaysian authorities believe they have several “pings” from the airliner’s service data system, known as ACARS, transmitted to satellites in the four to five hours after the last transponder signal, suggesting the plane flew to the Indian Ocean, a senior U.S. official told CNN.

3/14 Huffington Post Malaysia Airlines Missing Plane: Radar Data Suggests Jet Flew Deliberately Toward Andaman Islands, Sources Say

“An investigation into the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines jetliner is focusing more on a suspicion of foul play, as evidence suggests it was diverted hundreds of miles off course, sources familiar with the Malaysian probe said.

3/15 New York Times Malaysia Officials Open Criminal Inquiry Into Missing Jet

“The search for Flight 370 turned into a criminal investigation on Saturday, after Malaysia declared that the plane had been deliberately diverted and then flown for as long as seven hours toward an unknown point far from its scheduled route of Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

3/16 India Today Final words from Malaysian jet came after systems shutdown

“

The final words from the missing Malaysian jetliner’s cockpit gave no indication anything was wrong even though one of the plane’s communications systems had already been disabled, officials said Sunday, adding to suspicions that one or both of the pilots were involved in the disappearance.

3/17 Reuters Malaysian airplane investigators look at suicide as possible motive

“

The co-pilot of a missing Malaysian jetliner spoke the last words heard from the cockpit, the airline’s chief executive said on Monday, as investigators consider suicide by the captain or first officer as one possible explanation for the disappearance.

3/18 CNN New evidence in Flight 370 search explains plane’s path

“

New information from the Thai government bolsters the belief that missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 took a sharp westward turn after communication was lost.And it looks like that turn was no accident.A law enforcement official told CNN Tuesday that the aircraft’s first turn to the west was almost certainly programmed by somebody in the cockpit.

3/19 New York Times Newly Detected Objects Draw Searchers for Malaysian Plane

“

The Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, announced on Thursday that satellite imagery had detected objects that might be connected to the missing Malaysia Airlines jet that vanished on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8.

3/20 CBS News Possible Debris Near Australia Is ‘Best Lead’ Yet In Search For Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

“

A freighter used searchlights early Friday to scan rough seas in one of the remotest places on Earth after satellite images detected possible pieces from the missing Malaysia Airlines plane in the southern Indian Ocean.

3/21 New York Times Nations Start to Collaborate in the Search

“

The expansion of the multinational operation in the remote stretch of deep ocean illustrated how the increasingly bleak search for the jet was prompting some Asian nations to set aside regional tensions.

3/22 CNN China has new images showing object in southern Indian Ocean

“

China announced that it has satellite images of a large object floating in the search area for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, but Australian-led search teams in the southern Indian Ocean found no sign of it Saturday.

3/23 New York Times A Routine Flight, Till Both Routine and Flight Vanish

“

More than two weeks after Flight 370 disappeared, unbridled speculation surrounds the unfolding global drama. So much is uncertain about what happened on the plane, and so much of what has been disclosed by Malaysian authorities has been contradicted, that hardly any theory of its fate can be easily dismissed.

3/24 NPR Analysis Shows Flight 370 ‘Ended’ In Indian Ocean, Malaysia Says

“

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak said Monday that new analysis of the flight path of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 showed that it “ended in the southern Indian Ocean.”Speaking at a news conference in Kuala Lumpur, Razak said the U.K. Air Accidents Investigation Branch and the U.K.-based satellite company Inmarsat had used a first-of-its-kind analysis to determine the fate of the Boeing 777 and the 239 passengers and crew aboard.”Based on their new analysis, Inmarsat and the AAIB have concluded that MH370 flew along the southern corridor and that its last position was in the middle of the Indian Ocean, west of Perth,” the prime minister said.”This is a remote location, far from any possible landing sites,” Razak added. “It is therefore that with deep sadness and regret that I must inform you that with this new data, Flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean.”

Day 19 — The mysteriuos partial ping

Investigators revealed that eight minutes after the last complete transmission from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, there was a "partial ping" from the missing aircraft that could help investigators unravel what happened to the missing jet before it stopped flying.

The final partial transmission from the missing Boeing , which disappeared from civilian radar on March 8, "originates with the aircraft for reasons not understood," said Chris McLaughlin, senior vice president of Inmarsat PLC, which operates the satellite.

The company is investigating the partial ping - or digital handshake between the jet and the satellite - as "a failed login" to its satellite network or as "potential attempt by the system [aboard the aircraft] to reset itself," Mr. McLaughlin said.

The partial ping could have several possible explanations, he added, but that human interaction with the satellite communications system had been ruled out.

"We're not looking at this [partial ping] as someone trying to turn on the system and communicate," he said.

The partial ping is the latest in a series of clues that have presented new questions for investigators as they try to piece together what happened to the missing aircraft and the 239 people aboard.

Day 18 — Passengers

The 227 passengers and 12 crew onboard came from 14 different countries. The majority, 154, were Chinese while other passengers were from America, France, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Russia, the Netherlands, India, Ukraine, Russia, Taiwan and Indonesia. Seven of the passengers were children. The oldest passenger was 76.

Day 17 — Southern corridor

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak announced that, based on satellite data analysis from UK company Inmarsat, Malayia Airlines flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean, and no one on board survived.

In a press statement this afternoon, Mr Razak said: "Inmarsat, the UK company that provided the satellite data which indicated the northern and southern corridors, has been performing further calculations on the data. Using a type of analysis never before used in an investigation of this sort, they have been able to shed more light on MH370’s flight path. Based on their new analysis, Inmarsat and the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) have concluded that MH370 flew along the southern corridor, and that its last position was in the middle of the Indian Ocean, west of Perth. This is a remote location, far from any possible landing sites. It is therefore with deep sadness and regret that I must inform you that, according to this new data, flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean."

Day 16 — Thai satellite images

Thailand has spotted 300 floating objects in the southern Indian Ocean during a satellite search for the missing Malaysian airliner, its space agency said Thursday. The objects, ranging from two to 15 meters (6.5 to 50 feet) in size, were scattered over an area about 2,700 kilometres southwest of Perth.

Day 10 — Doppler effect

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.

Day 8 — Satellite pings

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak reveals at a press conference that actions taken on board Flight MH370 were deliberate – including the disabling of the aircraft's communications system shortly before the plane reached the east coast of Malaysia as well as the flight's divergence from its planned route.

The last confirmed signal between the plane and the Inmarsat satellite came at 8:11 a.m. Malaysian time — about 7 1/2 hours after takeoff. Analysis of the plane's last communication with satellites places the aircraft in one of two "corridors" – a northern one from northern Thailand through to the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, and a southern one from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean, Najib said.