Search for missing Malaysia jet shifts after new lead

Australian authorities are shifting the focus of their search for the wreckage of the missing Malaysia Airlines jet and moving more than 1,000 km northeast after receiving a new lead from Malaysia.

For more than a week, ships and planes have been scouring the seas 2,500 km southwest of Perth, where satellite images suggested that debris from Flight MH370 could be found.

The chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said the plane’s estimated speed had changed.

“This continuing analysis indicates the plane was travelling faster than was previously estimated resulting in increased fuel usage and reducing the possible distance it travelled south into the Indian Ocean,” Martin Dolan said.

The latest twist underscores the frustrating hunt for evidence in the nearly three-week search.

“This is the normal business of search and rescue operations that new information comes to light, refined analysis take you to a different place. I don’t count the original work a waste of time,”said John Young, general manager of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority emergency response division.

The United States is sending a second P8 Poseidon aircraft to join the 10 international planes and six ships now searching the area.

Time is running out too, to pick up traces from the plane’s black box recorder, which could give the long elusive answers to why it went off course.

The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 went missing in the early hours of March 8 with 239 people on board.

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