AUSTRALIAN Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) head Martin Dolan announced today that the next phase of the hunt for missing Malaysian jet MH370 will move hundreds of miles south.

The search will focus on an area 1,100 miles off the city of Perth.

Nearby areas were previously surveyed from the air, but the undersea hunt for the jet which vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Malaysia on March 8 with 239 passengers on board was directed north after pings were heard.

Experts had hoped that the pings detected shortly after the plane vanished were from its flight-data recorders, but after weeks of searching the ocean floor, it was concluded that the noises were unrelated to the plane.

Search teams have now returned to the initial satellite data to frame the new search area.

Before search teams can start looking for the plane, the seabed will be mapped by Chinese and Dutch vessels.