Hunt for missing flight set to intensify
Print Edition
THE hunt for a missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner will likely include cutting-edge sonar equipment when it ramps up again in October after the stormy southern hemisphere winter has passed, the Australian search leader said yesterday.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is overseeing the recovery operation on Malaysia’s behalf, has been criticized by some deep-sea salvage experts for not choosing synthetic aperture sonar, or SAS, from the outset of the search for flight MH370 that began far off the west Australian coast in October last year.
With the standard side-scan sonar that has been used to scour half the search area so far, the image of a seabed feature becomes less clear the farther it is away. With SAS, the image remains sharp.
Martin Dolan, the bureau’s chief commissioner, said negotiations are underway to hire SAS equipment to add to a fourth ship that will join the search, with the aim of combing the entire 120,000 square kilometer search area in the Indian Ocean by the middle of next year.
Fugro Survey, the Dutch underwater survey company hired to search for the plane that vanished on March 8 last year with 239 people aboard, has defended its use of traditional side-scan sonar. Fugro search director Paul Kennedy has described SAS as developing technology with some questions about its reliability.
Senior government officials from Australia, Malaysia and China — which lost 153 citizens in the disaster — are to meet in Australia next month to discuss future funding of the search.
So far, the underwater search has cost 80 million Australian dollars (US$57 million), with Australia and Malaysia splitting the cost.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
