The new phase of hunt will focus on an area 1,100 miles off the city of Perth, Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) chief Martin Dolan said.
Nearby areas were previously surveyed from the air, but the undersea hunt was directed north after pings were heard.
The jet vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Malaysia on March 8 with 239 passengers on board.
Experts had hoped that the pings detected shortly after the plane vanished were from its flight-data recorders.
After weeks of searching the ocean floor, it was concluded that the noises were unrelated to the plane.
Search teams have now returned to the initial satellite data to frame the new search area.
“All the trends of this analysis will move the search area south of where it was,” Martin Dolan said.
“Just how much south is something that we’re still working on.”
He said it was unlikely that the new search area would be as far from land as the aerial surveys had been.
Before search teams can start looking for the plane, the seabed will be mapped.
A Dutch firm has been contracted to carry out a detailed survey of the ocean floor.
The sea in the area is 3.8 miles deep, and the analysis is expected to take three months.
Many of the relatives of the missing passengers have been frustrated by the lack of progress in the search.
xE6yiSQiwrQAt least 158 people have died in Spain's worst flooding disaster in generations. On October…
Google has been fined two undecillion (a two followed by 36 zeroes) roubles by a…
Embarking on a home remodel is an exciting journey, promising enhanced comfort, increased property value,…
The US presidential candidates continued to campaign across key swing states on October 20. Footage…
Elon Musk has said he will give away $1 million a day to a registered…
India and Canada have decided to expel their top envoys along with other diplomats as…