DHAKA: All evidence points to Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 being lost in the remote Indian Ocean, Australian prime minister Tony Abbott said on Monday, backing his Malaysian counterpart’s view that the plane crashed.

The flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing vanished on March 8 carrying 239 passengers and crew, but more than three weeks later no wreckage has been found.

Many relatives of those on board have been incensed at the announcement on March 24 by Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak that. based on detailed analysis of satellite data, the plane could be presumed lost at sea.

But Abbott said he agreed with Najib’s conclusions.

‘The accumulation of evidence is that the aircraft has been lost and it has been lost somewhere in the south of the Indian Ocean,’ he told reporters at the Perth military base coordinating the search, reports The Straits Times.

‘That’s the absolutely overwhelming wave of evidence and I think that Prime Minister Najib Razak was perfectly entitled to come to that conclusion, and I think once that conclusion had been arrived at, it was his duty to make that conclusion public.’

BDST: 1404 HRS, MAR 31, 2014