Missing Malaysia Airlines jet not in search area, officials say

http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-malaysia-flight-mh370-search-20140529-story.html

Missing Malaysia Airlines jet not in search area, officials say
Barbara Demick
5.29.2014

The case of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 became ever more mysterious Thursday as Australia claimed that the missing airliner is not in the more than 300-square-mile patch of ocean where authorities have been searching since early April.

The admission came after a U.S. Navy official disclosed that the four "pings" once described as the most promising clues to the plane’s supposed location in the southern Indian Ocean most likely did not come from the plane’s black boxes.

"I wouldn’t say we are back to square one, but maybe to square one-and-a-half," said Ron Bishop, an Australian search-and-rescue expert and head of aviation at Central Queensland University.

The flight disappeared March 8 on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people aboard. Between April 5 and April 8, officials announced that an Australian ship equipped with a U.S.-made towed pinger locator had detected four signals that matched the frequency of the missing Boeing 777’s black boxes.