Australia works on new drift model as search for missing Malaysian Airlines flight M370 continues

On March 8th this year Malaysian Airlines flight M370 disappeared without trace. Initially the search started in the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea and then extended to the Strait of Malacca and Andaman Sea. Thereafter the search began to concentrate on the southern part of the Indian Ocean, west of Australia. An analysis of potential routes was conducted which identified a 600 km long by 90 km wide area roughly 2,000 km west of Perth, Western Australia as the most likely location of the aircraft. Once accepted as the most probable location, an underwater search of this area began on October 5th, 2014 and which has so far covered an area of 6,900km². This search will likely last for up to a year if the plane’s wreckage is not found beforehand, and the expected cost will be in excess of AU$50m.
This area has been agreed on by all international members of the search team, including Boeing, Thales, the US NTSB and the Australian Defence Science and Technology Organisation. However Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) Chief Commissioner, Martin Dolan, has commented about rumours of a disagreement in the camp after a new report released last month specified two new high-priority search areas located further to the south: “There is no disagreement, just the deliberate application of differing analysis models.” he said.
The Australians are working on a new drift model to increase the geographical area in which wreckage from plane may come ashore. Given that they had initially identified the correct location for the missing plane, debris should have started to come ashore on Western Sumatra after approximately 123 days. This was not the case, however Peter Foley, the search coordinator, has indicated that “We are currently working… to see if we can get an updated drift model for a much wider area where there might be possibilities of debris washing ashore.” Foley stated the research centre received reports of debris washed up on the Australian coastline at least once a week, but nothing has so far been identified as having come from the missing aircraft.