As the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 continues without success, the governments of Australia, China and Malaysia say they will double the search area.

At a press conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian transport minister Liow Tiong Lai, Australian deputy prime minister Warren Truss and Chinese transport minister Yang Chuantang vowed to double the size of  the current search area if necessary.

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"Should the aircraft not be found within the current search area, ministers agreed to extend the search by an additional 60,000 square kilometers to bring the search area to 120,000 square kilometers and thereby cover the entire highest probability area identified by expert analysis," they said in a joint statement.

The Boeing 777 aircraft, which dropped of radar in March last year carrying 239 passengers and crew, vanished without a trace - searchers have yet to identify one piece of debris the comes from the missing plane. The airplane is believed to have crashed in the Indian Ocean off Australia's west coast.

Malaysia's Liow said at the press conference that increasing the search area would cost an estimated $38.7 million, which would be paid for by Malaysia and Australia.

The total search area including the extension "would cover 95 percent of the flight path," he added.

The search of the remote 23,000 square mile patch of sea floor 1,000 miles west of the Australian city of Perth will likely be completed by the end of May. Searchers are using  four vessels equipped with high-tech underwater drones,  and have searched more than 60 percent of the previously unmapped expanse of sea floor that has been designated the highest priority, reports Reuters. 

Relatives of missing Chinese passengers, who made up the majority of the missing passengers on board the Beijing-bound flight, welcomed the expansion of the search area, reports USA Today. Some had feared the search area would be reduced, not enlarged, if no evidence was found in the area identified by experts as the plane's most likely resting place. 

TagsSearch Area for Flight MH370 to Double, Malaysia Airlines, mh370, Liow Tiong Lai, Warren Truss, Yang Chuantang