Investigators searching for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have recommended extending the search by 25,000 square kilometers, to an area further north in the Indian Ocean, after conceding for the first time they were probably looking in the wrong place.

Flight MH370 disappeared in March 2014 with 239 passengers and crew on board, most of them Chinese, en route to Beijing from the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur. Its whereabouts have become one of the world's greatest aviation mysteries.

The search coordinator, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, issued a report earlier on Tuesday in which it said new evidence from ocean drift modeling and analysis of satellite communications with the aircraft and washed-up debris helped determine the new area.