Scans of Indian Ocean floor may be completed within week

The search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 entered its 44th day on Sunday as Australian search officials said a crucial series of sonar scans of the Indian Ocean floor could be completed within a week.

The air, surface and underwater multinational search led by Australia is focused on data collected by a US Navy deep sea drone, which has narrowed its target range to a 10-kilometer circle of sea floor.

The Bluefin-21 autonomous underwater vehicle has spent the past week scouring the remote and largely unmapped stretch of ocean floor some 2,000 km northwest of the Perth, Australia, for signs of the plane, which disappeared on March 8 with 239 people on board, including 154 Chinese passengers.