Search mainly over for Malaysia plane vanished in 2014

3 countries say lack of pinpoint clues leaves no choice but to suspend effort

SYDNEY -- Australia's Transport Minister Darren Chester said this morning that experts will continue analyzing data and scrutinizing debris washing ashore from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 to narrow down where it crashed in the southern Indian Ocean.

But Chester declined to specify what kind of breakthrough would persuade officials to resume the search for the airliner that was suspended this week after almost three years.

"When we get some information or data or a breakthrough that leads us to a specific location, the experts will know it when they see it," he told reporters in the southern city of Melbourne.

The nearly three-year search for the missing plane ended today -- not because investigators have run out of leads, but because the countries involved in the hunt have shown no will to continue.

Late last year, as ships with high-tech search equipment covered the last strips of the 46,000-square mile search zone, experts concluded they should have been searching a smaller area immediately to the north. But by then, $160 million had already been spent by Malaysia, Australia and China, which had agreed over the summer not to search elsewhere without pinpoint evidence.

The transport ministers of those countries reiterated that decision Tuesday in the joint communique issued by the Joint Agency Coordination Center in Australia that announced the search for Flight 370 -- and the 239 people aboard the aircraft -- had been suspended.

"Despite every effort using the best science available, cutting-edge technology, as well as modeling and advice from highly skilled professionals who are the best in their field, unfortunately, the search has not been able to locate the aircraft," said the agency, which helped lead the hunt for the Boeing 777 in remote waters west of Australia.

"Accordingly, the underwater search for MH370 has been suspended. The decision to suspend the underwater search has not been taken lightly nor without sadness."

Relatives of those lost on the plane, which vanished during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, responded largely with outrage. A support group, Voice 370, issued a statement saying that extending the search is "an inescapable duty owed to the flying public."

But last year, Australia, Malaysia and China agreed that the hunt would be suspended once the search zone was exhausted unless new evidence emerged that indicated the plane's specific location. More than half of those aboard the plane were Chinese.

In December, officials investigating the plane's disappearance recommended that search crews head north to a new 9,700-square mile area identified in a new analysis as where the plane most likely crashed. But Australia's government rejected that recommendation, saying the results of the experts' analysis weren't precise enough to justify continuing the hunt.

The lack of resolution has caused agony for relatives of the flight's passengers, who have begged officials to continue the hunt for their loved ones.

"The whole series of events since the plane disappeared has been nothing but frustrating," said Grace Nathan, a Malaysian whose mother was on board Flight 370. "It continues to be frustrating and we just hope they will continue to search. ... They've already searched 120,000 square kilometers [46,300 square miles]. What is another 25,000 [10,000]?"

The sister of the pilot, Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah, slammed authorities for ending the search without settling the mystery, saying her brother will never be absolved of suspicions he deliberately crashed the plane.

"How can they end the search like that? There will be finger-pointing again," Sakinab Shah said.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said he empathized with the families, but said search officials had done the best they could under extraordinary circumstances.

"We share their deep disappointment that the plane has not been found," Turnbull said. "It is an unprecedented search. It's been conducted with the best advice over the areas that were identified as the most likely to find the location of the airplane. It is a shocking tragedy, and we grieve and we deeply regret the loss and we deeply regret that the plane has not been found."

Tony Abbott, who was Australia's prime minister when the Boeing 777 disappeared, said the search should continue. This morning, he tweeted: "Disappointed that the search for MH370 has been called off. Especially if some experts think there are better places to look."

In the absence of solid leads, investigators relied largely on an analysis of transmissions between the plane and a satellite to narrow down where in the world the jet ended up -- a technique never previously used to find an aircraft.

The search zone was enormous and in one of the most remote patches of water on Earth -- 1,100 miles off Australia's west coast. Much of the seabed had never even been mapped.

In July 2015, a wing flap from the aircraft was found on Reunion Island, east of Madagascar. Since then, more than 20 objects either confirmed or believed to be from the plane have washed ashore on beaches throughout the Indian Ocean. But while the debris proved the plane went down in the Indian Ocean, the location of the main underwater wreckage -- and its black box data recorders -- remains elusive.

A Section on 01/18/2017

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