Forget all the debris sightings: The Malaysia Flight 370 search has shifted 700 miles north

On Friday, Australia said it has shifted the search for the remains of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 almost 700 miles to the northeast, based on new analysis of the radar data. Investigators now believe the airplane was traveling at high speeds when it disappeared early March 8, meaning it would have run out of fuel sooner than previously thought. "Either they wanted to land very fast or they wanted to escape radar coverage as soon as possible," Mikael Robertsson of flight-tracking firm Flightradar24 tells The New York Times. "You burn a lot more fuel when you fly very fast, so normally you try to avoid it."

The new search area is smaller than the previous one — about 123,000 square miles, or one-fifth the size of the earlier site — generally shallower, closer to Australia, and predicted to have better weather. But a new zone also means that all the sightings of wreckage from the last week are moot — the search is essentially starting over. --Peter Weber

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