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.