PIECE OF THE PUZZLE

Flight MH370 ‘Made Rapid Descent’

Officials: “Death dive” indicators may be grounds for new search.

A new report suggests Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was in a “high and increasing rate of descent” when it plummeted into the Indian Ocean and disappeared in March 2014. Australian authorities are arguing for a new search effort for the jumbo jet based on the new information. The report, authored by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, claims the rapid-descent theory is consistent with an uncontrolled plane plummeting as well as pieces of an undeployed right outboard wing flap later discovered on an island off the coast of Tanzania that suggest the plane wasn’t configured for a landing. The future of the search for the plane will depend on whether this constitutes new and credible evidence about the location of the wreck. Only small pieces from the aircraft have so far been found since the flight’s disappearance two years ago.