Australia says stepping up hunt for MH370, confident of search area

The search has thus far focused on a 120,000 square km band of sea floor in the remote southern Indian Ocean.

Sydney: Australia will step up search efforts in an area they believe holds the best hope of finding a missing Malaysia Airlines jet, whose disappearance last year sparked one of the greatest mysteries in aviation history, officials said on Thursday.

An Australian-led underwater search, the most expensive ever conducted, has so far found no trace of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which went missing with 239 passengers and crew during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014.

The number of vessels searching for the jet would be doubled to four, Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said. One of the vessels would be provided by China.

The search has thus far focused on a 120,000 square km (46,330 square miles) band of sea floor in the remote southern Indian Ocean, where the plane is believed to have gone down.

Truss, flanked by officials from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) and Department of Defence, identified an area at the southern tip of that search band that is now believed to be the likeliest resting place of the wreckage.