Search for missing plane continues with new clues

CANBERRA, Australia, Aug. 28 (UPI) -- Search teams seeking the Malaysia Airlines plane that disappeared in March will look further south in their present search area, an Australian official said Thursday.

Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said new information, from an attempted phone call from airline ground staff to the missing plane on Mar. 8, the day it disappeared, yielded new information.

Truss said at a meeting of Australian, Malaysian and Chinese senior ministers in Canberra, Australia:

"Over the last few weeks and months, continuing work is being done on refining the information that we have in relation to the most likely resting place for this aircraft. The search area remains the same but some of the areas, some of the information we now have suggests to us that areas a little further to the south ... within the search area, but a little further to the south may be of particular interest and priority."

MH370 disappeared and presumably crashed into the Indian Ocean while on a trip from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing. 239 passengers and crew were aboard.

The new phase of the search, led by Dutch analysts and set to begin in September, will involve deep-sea vessels equipped with sonar tracking devices, multi-beam echo sounders and video cameras. Truss added Malaysia and Australia would share the cost of that phase.

"We are sure that through the joint efforts of all three parties, we will achieve what we've agreed to, and maintain the search efforts in finding MH370," said He Jianzhong, China's Vice Minister of Transport, who attended the conference. "The search will not be interrupted, will not be stopped, we will not give up."