Underwater vessel good to go for MH370 search mission – Bernama
The Malaysian-contracted vessel, Go Phoenix, is good to go for underwater probe for the vanished Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 at an isolated site in the Indian Ocean, 3,000km off Perth.
Communications and Multimedia Deputy Minister Datuk Jailani Johari said the condition of the ship was fit, based on the visit he made on the vessel and the briefing he had with the ship's operator.
"It is ready to go for the mission," he told Bernama in Perth, Australia, today.
He said the official launch for the vessel and underwater furnished equipment would be made by Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein on Wednesday at Freemantle port.
He said two journalists from the Malaysian national television station, Radio Television Malaysia (RTM), would cover a month-long search mission on board the vessel.
RTM's senior journalist Awaludin Abdul Ghani, 51, and cameraman Abdul Halim Mohd Yusof, 44, will be on board the Go Phoenix, which is equipped with sophisticated underwater detector vehicles called “Prosas”, to provide a 30-day news coverage.
The vessel will join the search operations of Malaysia-Australia contracted ships, Fugro Discovery and Fugro Equator.
Flight MH370, which was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members left the KL International Airport at 12.41am on March 8, and disappeared from the radar, about an hour later while over the South China Sea.
It was to have arrived in Beijing at 6.30am on the same day.
The Boeing 777-200ER aircraft has yet to be found, even after an exhaustive search in the southern Indian Ocean where it is believed to have gone down after veering off course. – Bernama, October 21, 2014.
