Australian officials announce new area for MH370 search south of original site
The Australian Transport Safety Board (ATSB) said it has used new analysis on the last movement of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 to revise the priority search area in the southern Indian Ocean.
The underwater vehicles involved will be scanning an area further south than previously expected, Bloomberg reported today.
In a statement published on its website, the ATSB said that the priority regions for the deep-sea sonar search "will most likely extend south of the previous 'orange' priority area".
The search for flight MH370 has been focusing in the southern Indian Ocean based on the data from the ping signals that the Inmarsat satellite detected in the last hours of the ill-fated aircraft.
MAS flight MH370 had departed Kuala Lumpur for Beijing in the early hours of March 8 before it lost radar and communications contact with air traffic control. It was then found to have made a turn-back from the South China Sea towards the Strait of Malacca before heading to the Indian Ocean, where the satellite ping signals show it turned south and "ended its journey in the southern Indian Ocean".
According to Bloomberg, three search vessels are preparing to start a year-long scan in 6.3km-deep waters of the Indian Ocean off Western Australia. This is after the working group planning the search zones also had a better understanding of satellite ground station operations which was in communication with the aircraft.
“Recent refinement to the analysis has given greater certainty about when the aircraft turned south into the Indian Ocean,” the ATSB said on its website.
The GO Phoenix search vessel contracted by Malaysia will arrive at the underwater search area on October 1, and search for about 20 days, according to the statement.
The two other vessels involved are Fugro Equator and the Fugro Discovery. Both are contracte by the Australian government, Bloomberg reported.
The Fugro Equator will start deep-sea sonar searches around the end of October after a ship-based seafloor scan is complete and the Fugro Discovery will arrive in Australia around October 2, where a crew and equipment will be mobilised. – September 24, 2014.
