“Even the best drift analysis is not going to narrow it down to X-marks-the-spot,” Foley said. The current search area was defined by analysis of a final satellite signal from the plane that indicated it had run out of fuel. But critics who favour the theory that Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah hijacked the plane argue that he could have glided the plane beyond the current search area. Crews have not given up hope of finding the plane in the current search area, which because of bad weather and 20-meter swells could take them until December to finish scanning. Less than 10,000 square kilometres of seabed, which is outside the original 60,000-square-kilometre high-priority search zone, remain to be searched.

Source: National Post August 19, 2016 17:26 UTC