Kuala Lumpur, Jan 30 (IANS): The underwater search for the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, missing the past 10 months, is expected to be completed by May, an official of the Malaysian Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) said in a technical briefing Friday.

DCA Flight Operations Assistance director Mior Nor Badrishah Mohamad said the weather condition will be very challenging for the search after May, as the waves could be very big in the region, Xinhua news agency reported.

He said that 18,623.26 sq km or 31.04 percent of the 60,000 sq km underwater search area has been searched so far.

Mior said that the current search area in the hunt for the MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean is the right place.

The searchers were confident that the aircraft was in the search area, Mior said, adding that if they could not find the plane there, they needed to sit down again and discuss about the best way forward with all the available data.

Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, a Boeing 777-200 aircraft with 239 passengers and crew on board, disappeared March 8 last year shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing.

There has been no trace of the wreckage or the bodies from the aircraft since.