KUALA LUMPUR, June 5 — Australia’s transport authorities today expressed confidence the wreckage of Flight MH370 was in the vicinity of the currently fruitless search, saying independent analysis of satellite data “confirms” the plane’s estimated location.

The announcement came as the discontinuation of the underwater search for the wreckage and the reported dismissal of acoustic signals previously thought to be from the plane’s black boxes prompted suspicion among families of the 239 people aboard the plane that went missing on March 8.

“The latest information and analysis confirms that MH370 will be found in close proximity to the arc set out in the map and labelled as the 7th arc.

“At the time MH370 reached this arc, the aircraft is considered to have exhausted its fuel and to have been descending,” the Australian Transportation Safety Board (ATSB) said in a statement today.

It added that independent analysis of the satellite communications and aircraft performance put MH370 within 38km of the so-called “Seventh Arc” within the section of the southern Indian Ocean.

Mired in mystery from the beginning, increasing doubts have surrounded the search for MH370 that has turned up no physical evidence nearly three months after the Beijing-bound flight vanished from civilian radar.

On May 29, the Joint Action Coordination Committee (JACC) called off the underwater search in the southern Indian Ocean, after deep-sea hunts using an autonomous submersible failed to detect any trace of aircraft debris in more than 850 square kilometres of the ocean floor in the area.

A day before, the US Navy's deputy director of ocean engineering Michael Dean caused shockwaves in the media when he reportedly told CNN that the four pings that led to the frantic search for MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean are no longer believed to have come from the plane's black boxes.

A second US Navy official later said the earlier observation was “speculative and premature.”

The discrepancy and others like it have dogged the hunt for missing plane, fuelling conspiracy theories and speculation that continue to surround the plane and the mystery of its disappearance.

The families of those aboard the missing plane continue to accuse authorities of being opaque in the search and recovery effort, leading to the release of several caches of information to explain the decisions made in the search.

But despite the releases, critics remain doubtful that the search is in the correct location.

The Bluefin-21 Autonomous Underwater Vehicle is craned over the side of the Australian Defence Vessel Ocean Shield in the southern Indian Ocean during the continuing search for the missing Flight MH370, April 17, 2014. — Reuters pic