Map of the path taken by Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. Image courtesy of Andrew Heneen/Wikimedia

Understanding of where Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 may be located is better than ever, a safety investigation body has found.

In its final report of the investigation into the missing aircraft, The Australian Safety Transport Bureau (ASTB) said the underwater search, which it coordinated, has “eliminated most of the high probability areas yielded by reconstructing the aircraft’s flight path and the debris drift studies conducted in the past 12 months have identified the most likely area with increasing precision.”

However, it said the reasons for the loss of MH370 cannot be established with certainty until the aircraft is found, adding it is “almost inconceivable…for a large commercial aircraft to be missing and for the world not to know with certainty what became of the aircraft and those on board.”

Tracking improvements

The loss of MH370 has led to some important learnings related to locating missing aircraft on flights over deep ocean areas, reported ASTB.

Requirements and systems for tracking aircraft have been enhanced and will continue to be enhanced, while steps are also being taken to advance other aircraft systems including emergency locator transponders and flight recorder locator beacons.

The underwater search area was located up to 2,800km west of the coast of Western Australia and the mapping of the seafloor here revealed a challenging terrain for the underwater vehicles which operated close to the seafloor, said ASTB.

Challenging terrain

While the deep tow vehicles selected as the primary search method proved to be very effective, the seafloor terrain necessitated the use of a range of search methods including an autonomous underwater vehicle to complete the sonar coverage, it stated.

At the time the underwater search was suspended in January 2017, more than 120,000km2 of seafloor had been searched and eliminated. In all, 661 areas of interest were identified.

Of these areas, 82 were investigated and eliminated as being related to MH370. Four shipwrecks were identified in the area searched.

By Rebecca Jeffrey