MH370 made a steep plunge into the ocean with no one at the controls, new report says

The doomed MH370 flight made a steep plunge into the ocean, according to a new report that suggests that no one was at the plane's controls as it crashed.

A fresh analysis of satellite data suggested the Malaysian Airlines flight had nosedived into a "high and increasing rate of descent" in its final moments.

The Australian report could help confirm that search teams are looking in the right place for the wreckage of the Boeing 777.

Some experts have suggested that the plane could have crashed during an attempted emergency landing, which would potentially triple the search area.

The new report also revealed that analysis of a wing flap thought to have come from the lost flight which washed ashore in Tanzania was not deployed for a landing.

Peter Foley, the bureau's director of Flight 370 search operations, said the latest evidence indicated that the plane had not been prepared for a landing or ditching when it crashed.

"You can draw your own conclusions as to whether that means someone was in control," he added.

It comes as teams meet in Canberra to discuss the founding search effort for the plane, which vanished on March 8 2014, with 239 people on board.

More than 20 items of debris suspected or confirmed to be from the plane have washed ashore on coastlines throughout the Indian Ocean.

But a deep-sea sonar search for the main underwater wreckage has found nothing.