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Thread: Malaysian Airlines Search Resumes

  1. #1
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    Default Malaysian Airlines Search Resumes

    http://online.wsj.com/articles/malay...ean-1412498802
    Crews resumed the deep-sea search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 after a monthslong pause while a remote stretch of the southern Indian Ocean’s floor was mapped.

    The ship GO Phoenix, which left Jakarta in late September, arrived in the search area—about 1,800 miles west of Australia—and began sweeping the area on Monday with a sonar device known as a towfish.

    Based on information released by Australian authorities, an independent group of satellite experts and other analysts said they expected the search to start at the southernmost point of the previously designated high-priority area, which is about the size of the Australian island state of Tasmania.

    “It’s an acknowledgment that the further south solution is more likely” to answer the puzzle of where the plane went down, said Tim Farrar, a northern California-based satellite industry consultant. A focus on the southern end of the search suggests investigators have concluded the Boeing BA -0.08% 777 went faster and flew further than projected by many earlier analyses.

    But the shift portends difficulties for search teams. The ocean is deeper further to the south, storms tend to be more violent and logistics are harder as search ships have to sail potentially hundreds of additional miles from Australian ports

    Searchers are hoping to answer what has become one of the greatest mysteries in aviation history. Flight 370 disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8 with 239 passengers on board. Investigators believe the plane crashed when it ran out of fuel.

    Potentially, the underwater hunt could end up moving so far south that it may even extend beyond the previously designated lower-priority search areas, Mr. Farrar said.

    Martin Dolan, chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, the agency leading the multinational hunt, said another ship, Fugro FUR.AE +0.56% Discovery, docked in the Western Australian port of Fremantle on Sunday to be fitted with a towfish and other equipment. After several days of fitting and testing the equipment, the ship is due to set sail and should arrive in the search zone about Oct. 17.

    A third vessel that will take part in the search, Fugro Equator, is completing the bathymetric survey of a long but narrow arc of seafloor where the search has been concentrated. It is slated to finish mapping by the end of the month, after which it is scheduled to journey to Fremantle, where it will be fitted with similar search equipment, Mr. Dolan said.

    Military search crews spent about 100 days scanning the ocean surface for debris after the Boeing 777 went missing but turned up nothing linked to the aircraft. An initial underwater search also failed to find any trace of Flight 370.

    Australia selected Dutch oil-and-gas consulting firm Fugro NV to lead a rebooted search for the Malaysian jetliner in early August after a monthlong tender process. The ship GO Phoenix was sent by Malaysia’s government to assist Fugro’s vessels.

    The area where the plane is thought to have crashed was largely unknown to scientists before ships began mapping the seabed, which at points is about 6,000 meters (19,700 feet) below the surface

    The three search ships will tow the delicate equipment about 100 meters above the seabed through areas now known to have deep crevasses, undersea mountains and volcanoes, Mr. Dolan said.

    The towfish are fitted with side-scan sonar and can carry video equipment to help crews aboard the ships spot any debris for Flight 370. The device that will be carried aboard Fugro Discovery also will have a sensor that, when turned on, can detect traces of jet fuel, Mr. Dolan said.

    —Andy Pasztor
    contributed to this article.

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    Default

    Really crazy story still.. hope they find it.. I think they will in the long run.

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