The search area for the missing Malaysian airliner on Friday shifted again, as investigators said new data showed the jet burned through its fuel faster than previously thought and traveled a shorter distance.
Aircraft and ships raced to the new location, about 1,850 miles off the coast of Perth, Australia, and nearly 700 miles from the location previously being scoured for the vanished aircraft throughout Thursday.
“This is a credible new lead and will be thoroughly investigated today,” said Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
“This is an extraordinarily difficult search, and an agonizing wait for family and friends of the passengers and crew. We owe it to them to follow every credible lead and to keep the public informed of significant new developments.”
The revised search area was discovered as the weather cleared enough on Friday to allow planes to hunt for fresh clues to the fate of the jet carrying 239 people that went missing on March 8.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority said the change was based on a new analysis provided by the international investigative team in Malaysia.
The most recent analysis of radar data showed that the Boeing 777 was flying faster than previously estimated. This may have resulted in increased fuel use and reduced the possible distance that the aircraft could have flown over the Indian Ocean.
The shift in search area comes after planes and ships had scoured parts of the southern Indian Ocean Thursday for 300 pieces of debris that a Thai satellite had spotted bobbing in the sea in the area where the jet was previously thought to have gone down.
But strong winds and fast currents have made it difficult to pinpoint the pieces, and the search for the plane has yet to produce a single piece of debris — not to mention its so-called black boxes, which could solve the mystery of why the jet flew so far off-course.
Wang Zhen, whose parents were aboard the missing plane, said he was becoming exasperated.
“There is nothing I can do but to wait and wait,” he said. “I’m also furious, but what is the use of getting furious?”
Experts cautioned that the area’s mountainous seas and harsh weather, along with its distance from land, were complicating an already-trying search.
“This is a really rough piece of ocean,” said Kerry Sieh, director of the Earth Observatory of Singapore. “I worry that people carrying out the rescue mission are going to get into trouble.”