( CNN ) The underwater search area for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 looks set to double in size . Teams are scouring the depths of a remote part of the southern Indian Ocean for the remains of the passenger jet that disappeared more than a year ago with 239 people on board . So far , they 've covered about 60 % of the priority search zone without reporting any trace of the airliner . Families of passengers and crew members still have no answers about what happened to their loved ones . If the searchers have n't found anything by the time they 've covered the entire 60,000-square-kilometer priority zone , the search will stretch into a new equally vast area , government officials from Malaysia , Australia and China announced Thursday . `` Ministers remain committed to bring closure and some peace to the families and loved ones of those on board Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 , '' the three countries said in a joint statement . The search of the current priority zone is expected to be completed in May . Covering the new zone could take as long as a year . At that point , `` all high probability search areas would have been covered , '' the governments said Thursday . The size of the doubled search area , the equivalent of more than 46,000 square miles , would be bigger than the U.S. state of Pennsylvania . Flight 370 vanished after taking off from Kuala Lumpur , Malaysia , on March 8 , 2014 , bound for Beijing . Officials are still trying to figure out why it veered dramatically off course over the sea between Malaysia and Vietnam and where exactly it ended up . An international team of experts used satellite data to calculate that the plane eventually went down in the southern Indian Ocean , far off the coast of Western Australia . The people on board the Boeing 777 came from various nations , but the majority were Chinese . CNN 's Elizabeth Joseph contributed to this report .
Malaysia , Australia and turkey are possible new areas of development for this plane . The search of the current priority plane is expected to be completed in May .