The deep sea hunt for a missing Malaysian airliner has shifted to a remote part of the Indian Ocean where a British pilot has calculated that the Boeing 777 made a controlled ditching last year with 239 people aboard, officials said today.


The patch of deep ocean southwest of Australia that Capt. Simon Hardy has determined is the most likely resting place of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 will be searched through December, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is coordinating the search on Malaysia's behalf, said in a statement. But Australian authorities are not being guided by the experienced Boeing 777 pilot's analysis.


Martin Dolan, the bureau's chief commissioner, said the search was moving farther south within a 120,000-square-kilometer (46,000-square-mile) priority area because the southern hemisphere spring had made the extreme conditions in the southern ocean calmer.