A team of experts are analyzing reams of data today to reexamine the flight path of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.
Officials announced Monday that investigators will review all of the information collected since the plane disappeared on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, to make sure they have been searching in the right place.
1.8 million square miles of the Indian Ocean have been scoured in an international search effort, but neither debris nor evidence of a crash site have been found.
Angus Houston, head of the Joint Agency Coordination Centre, believes it is time to go back to the drawing board.
"We've got to this stage of the process where it's very sensible to go back and have a look at all of the data that has been gathered, all of the analysis that has been done and make sure there's no flaws in it, the assumptions are right, the analysis is right and the deductions and conclusions are right," Houston told reporters.
At the press conference, Australian Transport Minister Warren Truss explained why a search for surface debris was recently called off.
"Unfortunately, all of that effort has found nothing," Truss said.
"We've been confident on the basis of the information provided that the search area was the right one, but in practice, that confidence has not been converted into us discovering any trace of the aircraft."
The Australians met with Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein and Chinese Transport Minister Yang Chuantang on Monday to discuss the next phase of the search for Flight 370.
23,000 square miles of sea floor will be searched next in an underwater mission. The officials are asking government agencies and private companies for equipment that can search deeper than the 2.8 miles the Bluefin 21 submarine is able to dive.
The Bluefin spent weeks combing the area where black box pings were detected last month.
Officials are also investigating a terrorist hijacking theory, and several media outlets reported that 11 suspected Al-Qaeda members were questioned last weekend in relation to the plane's disappearance.
However, Malaysian Chief of Police Khalid Bakar denied that the arrests were connected to Flight MH370.
Houston warned that the search for the missing plane could take up to a year.
