The search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is now predicted to continue into next year, approaching the third anniversary of the plane’s disappearance.
Bad weather continues to slow progress in the underwater search effort, coordinated by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) from Canberra.
The 120,000 sq km area of the southern Indian ocean was expected to be completed by mid-2016, before being extended to December.
But the ATSB announced on Wednesday it would now be completed “by around January/February 2017”, with less than 10,000 sq km of the area to go.
It attributed this delay to poor weather conditions during the southern hemisphere’s winter.
No ships are currently in action in the search zone, with the Fugro Equator having left to return to port on 15 October while the Dong Hai Jiu 101 remains berthed at Fremantle in Western Australia.
Both are being fitted with a remotely operated vehicle to be deployed once weather conditions improve.
It will investigate points of interest previously identified by “the towfish” – the underwater sonar vehicle being pulled behind the search ships.
None of the “sonar contacts” so far resemble aircraft debris, but some have “man-made properties” and so warrant further investigation, the ATSB said.
Wintry weather conditions have, until now, prevented the safe deployment of the vehicle.
The third anniversary of MH370’s disappearance en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people onboard will come on 8 March 2017.
Three pieces of debris found on the shores of Mauritius, Pemba island off Tanzania and the island of Réunion off Madagascar have been confirmed as being from the missing plane.
A piece of an aircraft wing found on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius was identified as belonging to missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Malaysian and Australian officials said on Friday last week.
A further five pieces have been found to be almost certainly from MH370. According to a recent update from the Malaysian government, which holds overall responsibility for the investigation, 13 pieces are still under evaluation.
But despite these clues the precise location of the plane’s wreckage underwater is not known.