Search area for Flight 370 to be doubled if plane not found

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) – Malaysia says the search area for the missing Flight 370 will be expanded by another 23,000 square miles in the Indian Ocean if the jetliner is not found by May.

The transport minister says Malaysia, Australia and China, which are leading the search for the Boeing 777 that went missing on March 8 last year, are “committed to the search.”

He says so far 61 percent of the 23,000-square-mile search area has been scoured off Australia’s west coast. He says the remaining area will have been searched by the end of May.

The plane went missing while on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board. It dropped off radar, and investigators later figured out that it made a series of turns and headed in a completely opposite direction from where it was heading before crashing into the Indian Ocean.