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Sydney – Malaysia’s defence minister said yesterday he was confident the search for the Malaysia Airlines passenger flight MH370 would be a success, Australian media reported.
Broadcaster ABC said Hishamuddin Hussein cited technology used in the search that has entered a third phase in the Indian Ocean off Western Australia.

“If the question just now was based on the technology that was available and we are looking in the right place, we’re talking about 99.9 percent”, he was quoted as telling reporters onboard the GO Phoenix search vessel in Freemantle.

The plane went missing on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8 with 239 people onboard. Hussein was transport minister at the time.

The GO Phoenix docked in the harbour city after experts using sophisticated sonar equipment spent 10 days surveying an ocean area of more than 1,200 square kilometres, ABC said. The search for MH370 is the most intensive in aviation history.

In August, Australian search coordinators said satellite experts had honed in on one particular area in the 60,000-square-kilometre southern Indian Ocean.

The area was identified after new information gleaned by experts from satellite data showed the plane may have turned south earlier than previously thought, they said.— Sapa.