Because while the ships are out there, Weeks says, she has hope. If the plane isn't found by May, one option is to expand the hunt beyond the current search zone into a wider area surrounding it, Australian Transport Minister Warren Truss said. Searching such a vast stretch of ocean would take an incredible amount of time and money. "If it's a search that has no hope, then there has to be a line drawn in the sand where ultimately somebody's going to have to make that decision," says U.K.-based airline security analyst Chris Yates. There will be soul-searching, too, for the crews scouring the sea for the plane, says David Gallo, who helped lead the successful hunt for Air France Flight 447 after it crashed in the Atlantic Ocean in 2009. Gallo's team faced a flurry of similar queries, from government officials weary of the ballooning search costs to frustrated families who wondered if they were qualified for the job. As the days tick by — nothing the first day, nothing the second day ...