Southern Route

www.nytimes.com (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-flight.html?_r=0) The southern arc, from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean, travels over open water with few islands stretching all the way to Antarctica. If the aircraft took that path, it may have passed near Australia’s Cocos (Keeling) Islands. These remote islands, with a population of fewer than 1,000 people, have a small airport. To the east of that route is Western Australia.