|
|
PETALING JAYA: The Australian contracted
MH370: Two vessels mapping ocean floor in defined search area, says JACC
|
|
PETALING JAYA: The Australian contracted survey vessel Fugro Equator has commenced operations in a defined search area, joining Chinese PLA-Navy ship Zhu Kezhen.
“Under the direction of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), the two vessels are conducting the bathymetric survey, which is crucial to carrying out the deep water search for MH370 that is scheduled to commence in August,” said the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) in a media statement on Wednesday.
The ships will regularly send survey data to the ATSB and Geoscience Australia, which will be used to progressively build a map of the search area.
After specialists complete an extensive collaborative analysis, the search area will be confirmed before the end of June.
Provisional results of that analysis indicates that the search zone will move, but still be on the seventh arc, where the aircraft last communicated with satellite.
It will take an estimated minimum of three months to complete the bathymetric survey of the 60,000 square kilometre search zone.
At the end of May, Zhu Kezhen came into the port of Fremantle for repairs after suffering a defect to its multibeam echosounder.
The defect has been rectified and the ship will resume operations in the search area shortly.
MH370, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, left the KL International Airport at 12.41am on March 8 and disappeared from radar screens about an hour later, while over the South China Sea. It was to have arrived in Beijing at 6.30am on the same day.
A multinational search was mounted for the aircraft, first in the South China Sea and then, after it was learned that the plane had veered off course, along two corridors – from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to northern Thailand and the southern corridor, from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak then announced on March 24 – 17 days after the disappearance of the aircraft – that Flight MH370 had “ended in the southern Indian Ocean”, following analysis of data released by United Kingdom satellite telecommunications company Inmarsat. has commenced operations in a defined search area, joining Chinese PLA-Navy ship Zhu Kezhen.
“Under the direction of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), the two vessels are conducting the bathymetric survey, which is crucial to carrying out the deep water search for MH370 that is scheduled to commence in August,” said the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) in a media statement on Wednesday.
The ships will regularly send survey data to the ATSB and Geoscience Australia, which will be used to progressively build a map of the search area.
After specialists complete an extensive collaborative analysis, the search area will be confirmed before the end of June.
Provisional results of that analysis indicates that the search zone will move, but still be on the seventh arc, where the aircraft last communicated with satellite.
It will take an estimated minimum of three months to complete the bathymetric survey of the 60,000 square kilometre search zone.
At the end of May, Zhu Kezhen came into the port of Fremantle for repairs after suffering a defect to its multibeam echosounder.
The defect has been rectified and the ship will resume operations in the search area shortly.
MH370, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, left the KL International Airport at 12.41am on March 8 and disappeared from radar screens about an hour later, while over the South China Sea. It was to have arrived in Beijing at 6.30am on the same day.
A multinational search was mounted for the aircraft, first in the South China Sea and then, after it was learned that the plane had veered off course, along two corridors – from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to northern Thailand and the southern corridor, from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak then announced on March 24 – 17 days after the disappearance of the aircraft – that Flight MH370 had “ended in the southern Indian Ocean”, following analysis of data released by United Kingdom satellite telecommunications company Inmarsat.
