The search for the wreckage of the ill-fated Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 might finally come to an end before the end of the year if nothing turns up by December.
The Joint Agency Coordination Center (JACC) which comprises the search teams from Australia, Malaysia, and China, said on August 24 that the hunt for the remains of the missing plane would be suspended indefinitely by December if no new evidence turns up, cites F. World.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has also echoed the statement of the JACC, which is quite understandable considering the cost of the massive search for the wreckage of the Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 which began more than two years ago has already ballooned substantially.
Flight MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014 during its flight from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia to Beijing in China. It was carrying 239 people on board including 227 passengers and 12 crew members.
The search for the missing remains of the Boeing 777 jet was supposed to conclude this month as it was hampered by bad weather and the unexpected search vessel maintenance, but they continued on just the same.
The decision to conclude the search in December also comes with the fact that more than 110,000 square kilometers of the previously identified 120,000 kilometers search zone has been already thoroughly explored by the search teams.
The remaining less than 10,000 square kilometers of Indian Ocean space can be covered by the search team in about four months or less.
Pin-point drift modeling
While the search may already conclude in December, authorities will continue to look into other ways to be able to determine the cause of the accident or perhaps open new areas for possible future search.
Accordingly, after the search is done, efforts of the authorities shall focus on pin-point drift modeling, using the locations of washed up debris such as the flaperon found on Reunion Island last year.
Scientists will methodically map accurate drift patterns in order to determine a new precise location for a search zone.
In a statement by authorities, they said that 30 years of real-life Global Drifter Programme data will be used to model the drift of the flaperon.
The statement also explained that it will not be able to identify the precise location of the aircraft on its own but it is hoped that when it is added to their existing knowledge and any future learnings, a specific location of the aircraft will be able to be identified.
Helping out in the search
Meanwhile, the search for the wreckage of Flight MH370 and its parts has also generated a response from private individuals.
A trio of amateur investigators recently met up to scour the South African shoreline in the hope of finding new evidence for the missing plane, reports the International Business Times.
The amateur investigators include Blaine Gibson, Neels Kruger, and Liam Lotter, who have uncovered a dozen of suspected pieces of debris between them from the missing Flight MH370 wreckage.
According to reports, the trio has accomplished what an expansive sweep of the Indian Ocean has not done, which is finding pieces of the aircraft.
Gibson, a lawyer from Seattle, found debris in March in Mozambique that Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said had a high possibility of being from Flight MH370.
Lotter, a teenager from South Africa, discovered a wing part last December that Australian Minister for Infrastructure and Transport said was almost certainly from the missing plane.
Kruger, an archaeologist from South Africa, located an engine part also in March that also had links to the plane.
The amateur investigators plan to walk along beaches in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal and look for plastic, metal, or fiberglass.
In an interview, Gibson said that pieces of the plane would be light gray or white and could look as though they are from a boat, surfboard or even a box. He added that the debris will not only tell them where the plane crashed, but also why.