KUALA LUMPUR, March 3 (Xinhua) -- The new effort to find the missing Malaysia Airline flight MH370 is expected to complete by June, a Malaysian official said Saturday as families marked the fourth year since the plane disappeared.
After previous search effort failed to find the plane in an area of 120,000 square kilometers, the Malaysian government signed an agreement with U.S. based exploration firm Ocean Infinity in January to resume search on a "no cure, no fee" basis within a 90-day timeframe.
At the gathering to mark the fourth anniversary of MH370 going missing on Saturday, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, director general of the Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia, told families that the 90 days would not include the days when Seabed Constructor, the vessel operated by Ocean Infinity, leaves the search area to refuel and resupply in the nearby port roughly every 26 days.
"I expect the search to finish in early June or mid-June," he told reporters later.
He said the search has entered the second search area of 10,000 square kilometers after the first 5,000 square kilometer search concluded in vain. The search will move further north if the plane is not found in the 25,000 square kilometers recommended by the Australian investigators.
Meanwhile, the recovery plan is being finalized with Malaysian and Australian agencies in the case that the plane is found, Azharuddin said, adding that the primary targets for recovery remain to be the two black boxes.
The latest weekly search update released by the Malaysian government said the total area covered as of Feb. 25 is 8,200 square kilometers with "no significant contacts identified to date."
MH370 disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, carrying 239 people on board.