PUTRAJAYA: The search and recovery effort for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 will have to be reverted back to the drawing board if it was not found in the 60,000 square kilometre search radius by May, said Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai.
He said any decision to re-strategise the search would only be done if the scouring of the ocean floor in the southern Indian Ocean did not produce the wreckage of the plane.
“It is important to continue the search and hopefully we can complete it by then (May),”
“If the plane is not found we will have to evaluate the figures and rely on the experts to guide us on what to do next,”
“We are confident that the plane is situated in the identified search area in the South Indian Ocean and we are looking forward to finding it,” he said during a special interview session to commemorate the one-year-mark since the disappearance
Liow was responding to Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s comment that the search and recovery effort may be ‘scaled back’ after the year-long search.
"There is no discussion on the issue to stop the search because as far as we are concerned, it is a tripartite decision that has made a commitment to complete the search in the 60,000 square kms,
“Therefore it has to continue.”