Oceanographer says Flight 370 could be north of search area

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — The oceanographer whose calculations helped an American adventurer find potential debris from Flight 370 said Thursday that the Malaysia Airlines jetliner could have crashed slightly north of the current search area.

Adventurer Blaine Gibson handed Malaysian authorities in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday three pieces of debris and personal belongings that he found on Madagascar beaches in June, which he suspects came from the Boeing 777 that vanished with 239 people on board during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014.

Despite the drift modeling and other predictions officials have made about the plane's possible flight path, no one knows what happened to the aircraft or precisely where it crashed in what has become one of aviation's biggest mysteries.

Officials from Malaysia, China and Australia will meet in Kuala Lumpur on Friday to discuss the future of the underwater search, with fewer than 10,000 square kilometers (3,900 square miles) remaining to be scanned by ships towing sonar equipment.