The acoustic pings transmitted prompted the Australian prime minister Tony Abbott to say he was ‘very confident’ they were from the black box of the plane. But since the whole search area has now been scoured, and nothing has been found, officials are saying the pings must not have come from the plane, and were most likely from the search boat or ping detector themselves.
Sarah Bajc, whose boyfriend Philip Wood was one of the passengers on the plane, told Sky News: “We are no further along than we were on March 8. Every single, solitary lead has proven to be false. There is no evidence, not a shred of wreckage, nothing. From a logic perspective we must come to the conclusion that there has got to be another answer.”
Steve Wang, whose 57-year-old mother was also on board the missing flight, said: “We all feel quite helpless; we don’t know who to turn to now.”
A statement released by Australia’s Joint Agency Coordination Centre said: “The ATSB has advised that the search in the vicinity of the acoustic detections can now be considered complete and in its professional judgement, the area can now be discounted as the final resting place of MH370.”
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