Malaysia Flight 370 Still Missing as Search Stops

It's been almost three months since the Flight leaving Kuala Lumpur headed for Beijing vanished into the night.  And as search teams bring things to a temporary halt, we look back and see what has been done since March 8th.

A basic run down of events.

March 8th

-Flight 370 leaves Kuala Lumpur at 12:41am, with 239 people aboard from 14 countries.

-90 minutes later signal is lost.

-2 minutes later the transponder is turned off.

-56 minutes later, a westward traveling unidentified object is seen on Malaysian radar.  Made public a week later and thought to be the lost plane.

-The following morning in Beijing, families await the arrival.

March 9th

-An oil slick found in the Gulf of Thailand is spotted, thought to be from MH370

-Search efforts search this area to find nothing

Search efforts continue and nothing is found.  New satellite images from China didn't check out and nothing was found and to this day nothing has been found in the search efforts.  Several days into the investigation officials decided that the plane had turned around at some point over the Gulf of Thailand and headed south west.  Search efforts continued their search and had spread into the Indian Ocean with a search reaching from Australia to Pakistan.  Nothing was found.

Up until now the search has concluded in the Indian ocean where they believed the plane had come to it's final resting point.  Nothing found. The best source of information that the unmanned vehicle the "BlueFin" had given search officials were pings that were believed to be from the planes black box.  Turns out the possibility of a false ping arose.  Earlier reports say that the pings that were recorded were from the BlueFin itself.  Frustrating I'd imagine

So now we look at what's next.  The BlueFin unmanned vehicle that scours the bottom of the ocean has completed it's search and found nothing.  Questions are arising now and are featured in the Messenger Inquirer this morning.

Q: If the pings that were recorded we not from the plane where does this leave search efforts and how will it effect the search?

A: Angus Houston is the head of the search.  He's the man that said the pings were the most promising lead to find the plane.  Since the search efforts were to be moved and opened farther, this particular setback wouldn't effect the search too much.

Q: Why is the search stopped and when will it begin again?

A: As we mentioned before, the BlueFin had completed it's search.  There is a major limit to how far this vehicle can travel beneath the surface.  So as time passes the officials must find a new vehicle that is capable to go deeper than ever before.  Deep... meaning, places nothing has ever been before.  The search is aimed to resume sometime in August.

Q: How long will the new equipment take to search the new area?

A: The new search are is 21,600.  Call it a year before that area is covered.

Q: How much funding is being used?

A:  Australia is using 90 Million Australian Dollars, equivalent to 84 million US dollars.  This will cover the search through June of 2015.  Australia is still seeking other countries to be involved in the search as long as they pay their own way.  Tony Abbott is the Australian Prime Minister and he is now seeking more contributions from other countries to help pay for the new equipment.