Andy Sherrell of Sherrell Ocean Services, describes the preparations for the search for MH370 and some of the challenges that the searchers face. Source: ATSB, video by ABIS Chris Beerens, RAN

Andy Sherrell of Sherrell Ocean Services, describes the preparations for the search for MH370 and some of the challenges that the searchers face. Source: ATSB, video by ABIS Chris Beerens, RAN

THE man overseeing the underwater search for MH370 believes the aircraft will be found in the southern Indian Ocean in the next three months.

With the entire 60,000 sq km priority search zone due to be fully explored by the end of May, governments have been reluctant to say what will happen if nothing is found.

The only statement the Joint Agency Coordination Centre has issued on the matter is the Chinese, Malaysian and Australian Governments will consider “next steps”.

“What those next steps might be is precisely what the three governments will need to consider,” said a JACC spokesman.

But Australian Transport Safety Bureau Commissioner Martin Dolan said he was confident of locating the Boeing 777 by the time the current search was complete.

“I don’t wake up every day thinking ‘this will be the day’ but I do wake up every day hoping this will be it, and expecting that sometime between now and May that will be the day,” said Commissioner Dolan.

“It’s been both baffling and from our point of view unprecedented — not only the mystery of it, but also on the scale of what we’re doing to find the aircraft.

“As we keep on pointing out, we don’t have a certainty only a confidence that we’ll find the missing aircraft.”

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He said the mystery surrounding the complete absence of debris from MH370 was currently being re-examined by drift modelling experts.

The failure to find even a life jacket from the Malaysia Airlines’ jet has been one of the most confounding aspects of the Kuala Lumpur-Beijing flight that disappeared on March 8 with 239 passengers and crew on board.

It was initially thought to have crashed into the South China Sea or Gulf of Thailand before satellite information resulted in a change of focus to the remote southern Indian Ocean.

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Due to the delayed start to the surface search in the area, any debris was thought to have sunk or drifted beyond the search field — but it was expected to have washed ashore in Sumatra by now.

Comm Dolan said it “would’ve been good to have found surface wreckage” but they were not particularly surprised nothing had been located.

“We continue to work with experts to look at the modelling for where any potential floating wreckage might have drifted to,” he said.

“We’re in the middle of reviewing that, given how many days we are into this.

“It’s quite complex stuff now and we expect to have an update on that in the next little while, but we’re not holding out any hope any surface wreckage will be detected.”

He said much of the modelling was dependent on “how the aircraft would’ve collided with the water” and the extent to which the Boeing 777 remained intact.

“We don’t know how much debris there would’ve been on the surface in the first place …. and it’s possible any floating wreckage might’ve sunk,” Mr Dolan said.