MH370 Update: Experts Say Search For Missing Malaysian Airliner Could Be Focussing On Wrong Area

Experts in Germany have raised doubts over the current search area for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, as confusion continues to linger over a flaperon’s link to the missing plane. Andreas Villwock of the Geomar Helmholtz Centre for Oceanography in Kiel said Friday that the search area in the southern Indian Ocean is thousands of miles off-target.

A wing part from a Boeing 777 aircraft that was discovered on the French island of Réunion "probably came from the eastern equatorial Indian Ocean," Villwock reportedly said. He added that the area from where the flaperon originated is thousands of miles from the previously presumed crash site at 35 degrees latitude south of the Equator. The experts came to this conclusion after using a model of ocean currents to guess its drift path, according to reports.

The Geomar institute reportedly said that it will give details on its findings at a news conference on Tuesday.

Flight MH370 went missing on March 8, 2014 with 239 people on board while on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The discovery of the flaperon gave rise to hopes that the mystery over the plane's disappearance would finally be solved. However, French authorities examining the flaperon, which is the strongest piece of evidence to surface so far, have not confirmed its origin, even as Malaysian authorities said that it is from the missing Boeing 777-200.

Last week, Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Centre confirmed that the first phase of inspection work into the flaperon's origin has been concluded. Ten days have passed since then with no information.

Meanwhile, French newspaper la Dépêche du Midi, said, citing experts, that there is no guarantee that the piece of debris actually originated from the missing plane.

“Nothing permits it to be 100 percent certified as belonging to MH370," la Dépêche reported, according to the Inquisitr.

Despite more than a year of search, no significant plane parts have been found except for the flaperon. Malaysia, Australia and China are expected to hold a meeting early September to determine whether the search area of 46,332 square miles in the southern Indian Ocean should be narrowed down.