The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) online reported people familiar with the process saying that the plane's heading, altitude and speed in its final hours were now being recalculated to determine where the Malaysian Airlines plane which went missing on March 8 may have landed.
"It was still a work in progress," the unnamed source was quoted saying, adding that public disclosure of the new area could come only by mid-June.
The search team was conducting a re-tooling exercise this month and the new underwater scanning equipment isn't slated to begin operating until August, WSJ said.
WSJ said crucial to pinning down a new search area would be assumptions about the plane's turnaround, its fuel capacity and the speed at which it was flying.
"If the turn occurred at a different time and location, as investigators now apparently believe - or the jet had more fuel on board at that point than previously surmised - the upshot could be dramatic.
"It may significantly change assumptions about how fast and far the plane would have been able to fly before its tanks ran dry," read the report.
The report said that investigators have been plugging in speeds ranging from a maximum of more than 550 miles (885km) per hour to as slow as about 350 miles (563km) per hour.
"Slower speeds were used to focus the unsuccessful May search, prompting a new look at faster speeds," investigators said.
Previous changes were dramatic
WSJ however added that the US National Transportation Safety Board declined comment.
Malaysian officials, Australia's search-coordinating agency and the US Federal Aviation Administration didn't immediately respond. Boeing has said it won't discuss its role.
Previously, changes in search areas were dramatic, WSJ said.
In late March, Australian authorities shifted the search on the surface some 500 miles to the northeast based on updated radar data and new speed calculations. Around that time, British satellite company Inmarsat released an analysis of satellite communications showing aircraft speeds exceeding 500 miles per hour.
In early May, by which time searchers had shifted focus again and were using a submersible system called the Bluefin-21 to look deep underwater in a limited area, investigators released a report showing the assumed speed of the plane in the roughly 350 miles per hour range.
When acoustic signals, or "pings" thought to come from the plane's "black box" recorders, turned out be dead ends, investigators stepped up the analysis that is currently under way.
The Canberra-based Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) last announced on its website on May 31 that the Chinese survey ship Zhu Kezhen, which was tasked to map the ocean floor, has returned to port for maintenance.
The last underwater mission by US robot Bluefin-21 ended on May 29 failing to detect any debris from the Boeing 777 plane which went missing with 239 passengers and crew members onboard in the early hours of March 8.
The Malaysian Airlines flight took off from KL International Airport and was en route to Beijing.
Msiakini
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