MH370 meet ends, no update on search plans

Malaysian, Chinese and Australian officials on Tuesday wrapped up two days of talks on the deep-sea search for missing flight MH370 but made no announcements, amid expectations the operation will finish by August.

Officials said the closed-door gathering in Malaysia’s administrative capital Putrajaya paves the way for a tripartite meeting of transport ministers in the near future in which search plans could be spelt out.

No date for that meeting has been set yet.

The Australian-led search is scouring the seabed within a designated 120,000-square-kilometre zone in the remote Indian Ocean where authorities believe the Malaysia Airlines passenger jet may have gone down.

That is expected to be completed by August, and the three countries have said the hugely expensive high-tech sonar search west of Australia will not be further expanded without “credible” new evidence pointing to a crash site.

Malaysia’s department of civil aviation director-general Azharuddin Abdul Rahman declined to comment on what was discussed in the meeting.