Hunt for MH370 shifts to earlier ‘ping’ site
Print Edition
AN Australian naval vessel carrying an underwater drone involved in the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 left port yesterday on its second mission to scan part of the Indian Ocean where the longest sonar “ping” was heard over a month ago.
The Ocean Shield is heading to the area where a signal was heard for about two hours on April 5, about 1,600 kilometers northwest of Perth to launch the Bluefin-21 submersible.
More than two dozen countries have been involved in the hunt for the Boeing 777 that disappeared from radar shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing with 239 people, mostly Chinese, on board.
Weeks of sorties have failed to turn up any trace of the plane. Batteries on the black box voice and data recorders have gone flat.
The search had been centered on a 314-square-km area around the second “ping” located and monitored for about 13 minutes on April 5, and which search authorities identified as their strongest lead.
With the search of that area complete, the focus is shifting to the area where the first, and longer, signal was detected the same day, US Navy Captain Mark Matthews said.
“What you do is you go look at your best indications and you pursue them until they’re exhausted. These things don’t happen fast,” he said.
Australia, China and Malaysia last week pledged not to give up searching for the plane, even though air and surface searches for debris have been abandoned.
The Ocean Shield returned to Stirling Naval Base south of Perth last week after more than a month at sea to resupply, change crew and perform software modifications and maintenance on the Bluefin.
The submersible has dived to a maximum depth of 5,005 meters in its daily 20-hour missions to scan the ocean floor using sonar, Matthews said.
With just three weeks left on loan from the US Navy, the pressure is on about how to proceed and who will pay for the next phase of the search.
Last week, Malaysian officials said the focus will be on 60,000 sq km of seabed in the Indian Ocean that could take a year to search.
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