How Foo Yeen/Getty Images(KUALA LUMPUR) — After three years, one of commercial aviation’s greatest mysteries may remain unsolved, as the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 ended without the plane being located and no new evidence of its location discovered.
The announcement of the search’s conclusion came from the Joint Agency Coordination Center in Australia.
“Despite every effort using the best science available, cutting edge technology, as well as modelling and advice from highly skilled professionals who are the best in their field, unfortunately, the search has not been able to locate the aircraft,” the statement reads. “Accordingly, the underwater search for MH370 has been suspended.”
Some $160 million has been spent to search over 46,000 square miles of the southern Indian Ocean, the site where searchers believe the Boeing 777 went down March 8, 2014 en route from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Beijing, China. All 239 passengers and crew are presumed lost.
The cause of the crash remains unknown, with speculation ranging from mechanical failure, to terrorism, to deliberate crashing by the pilot.
“The decision to suspend the underwater search has not been taken lightly nor without sadness,” the statement declares. “Whilst combined scientific studies have continued to refine areas of probability, to date no new information has been discovered to determine the specific location of the aircraft.”
“We remain hopeful that new information will come to light and that at some point in the future the aircraft will be located,” it concludes.
Copyright © 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.