Following a month-long hiatus, Australian crews resumed their deep-sea search for the missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 early this week, while an inaccessible stretch of the Indian Ocean's southern floor was mapped.

On Monday, the ship GO Phoenix that left the shores of Jakarta in late September arrived in the search area - located roughly 1,800 miles west of Australia - and started sweeping the region using a sonar device called a towfish.

Meanwhile, on the basis of information released by the Australian authorities, a group of independent satellite experts as well as other analysts stated that they anticipated the search to commence at the southernmost point of the previously designated high-priority area, which comprises an area roughly the size of Tasmania.

Tim Farrar, a northern California-based satellite industry consultant, said, "It's an acknowledgment that the further south solution is more likely" to solve the puzzle of where the plane went down. Focusing on the southern end of the search indicates that the investigators have concluded the Boeing 777 flew faster as well as further than expected.

However, a weather shift creates difficulties for search teams, as the Indian Ocean is deeper and further to the south, where storms tend to be more violent. In addition, logistics are harder, as search ships will be required to sail potentially several hundred additional miles from Australian ports.

Meanwhile, searchers are hopeful that they will come up with an answer as to what has become one of the greatest mysteries in aviation history. Flight 370 disappeared mysteriously on the way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8 with 239 passengers on board. Investigators are of the view that the Boeing crashed when it ran out of fuel.

According to Farrar, the underwater hunt could potentially end up moving so far south that it may even extend further than the previously designated lower-priority search areas.

The chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, the agency which is leading the multinational hunt, Martin Dolan said that another ship, Fugro Discovery, docked in the Western Australian port of Fremantle on Sunday to be fit with a towfish and other equipment. Following several days of fitting and testing the equipment, the ship is due to set sail and should arrive in the search area around Oct. 17.

Dolan further said that Furgo Equator, a third vessel will also take part in the search and it is currently completing the bathymetric survey of a long but contracted arc of seafloor where the search is focused. It is expected that the mapping will be complete by the end of October, and after that, the ship will journey to Fremantle, where it will be fitted with similar search equipment.

Earlier, military search crews spent about 100 days scanning the ocean surface for debris after the mysterious disappearance of the Boeing 777, but turned up nothing related to the aircraft.