As officials decide the chances of finding any debris on the surface had dwindled, a robotic search vehicle will likely be deployed into the depths of the Indian Ocean, in the hopes of finding the remains of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.
Angus Houston, Australia’s Air Chief Marshal and lead coordinator of the country’s search efforts, said the process of looking for any part of Flight MH370 has reached a critical junctur, as the jetliner’s black box batteries were dying, or had already died.
An Australian ship that picked up signals over the weekend that were consistent with those sent out by aircraft black boxes, had not registered any further pulses, said Houston.
“The locator beacon has a shelf life of 30 days and we are now passed that time and as a consequence there is a chance that the locator beacon is about to cease transmission, or has ceased transmission,” Houston told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio.
“It’s all very finely balanced and I think it’s absolutely imperative to find something else.”
Houston said the chance of finding anything on the surface was greatly diminished due to strong currents and a cyclone that had passed through the area in the past week.
Houston said the Australian ship Ocean Shield was still pulling the pinger locator in an effort to regain contact but would likely move quickly to remove that equipment and instead send down an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) named Bluefin-21.
The Bluefin will scour the ocean floor in 20-hour missions using sonar in an attempt to find the Boeing 777, before its findings are downloaded and analysed on board the Ocean Shield.
If anything unusual is spotted, the sonar on board the robotic vehicle will be replaced with a camera to take a closer look. The potential search area was 4.5km deep, the same as the Bluefin range.
Malaysia’s acting Transport Minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, told reporters in Kuala Lumpur he was “cautiously hopeful” that the signals picked up would lead to a positive finding soon.
Story: Reuters
Reader Interactions