The Boeing 777 disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014 carrying 239 passengers and crew.
The report by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau found the plane's final satellite communications were "consistent with the aircraft being in a high and increasing rate of descent" when it vanished.
Analysis of the right outboard flap -- which was found off Tanzania -- showed it was "most likely in the retracted position", suggesting the plane was not configured for landing before it smashed into the ocean.
"You can draw your own conclusions," the ATSB's head of MH370 search operations Peter Foley told reporters, adding that the new findings showed "we're looking for an aircraft that's actually quite close to the seventh arc."
Also Read
The search zone -- defined under the "most likely" scenario that no one was at the controls as the jet ran out of fuel -- is a thin, long stretch of water within the so-called seventh arc, where the plane was calculated to have emitted a final satellite "handshake" showing its location.
Despite a massive underwater hunt far off Western Australia's coast, no trace of the jet has been found.
Investigators have however confirmed that three pieces of debris recovered along western Indian Ocean shorelines came from MH370.
More than 110,000 square kilometres (42,470 square miles) of a 120,000-square-kilometre search arc have been scoured so far and the operation is due to wrap up in early 2017.
Their findings will "inform the remainder of the search effort, and develop guidance for any future search operations."
"There are currently more than 20 items of debris of interest to the investigation team which have been located on the coasts of Africa, Madagascar, the islands of Mauritius, Reunion and Rodrigues," he added.
Ongoing drift analysis also suggested the search focused on the right place, the ATSB said, noting it was "unlikely debris originated south of the current search area.
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content