Search teams scouring the ocean floor 1800km south west of Perth for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have discovered what they believe is a ship wreck at a depth of 3900m.
Yesterday the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) released images of the ocean floor debris trail taken by the Furgo Equator which shows an anchor and what are believed to be lumps of coal.
The find is in the southern part of the search area, 12 nautical miles to the east of what is called the 7th arc. The ship detected the sonar returns and while unlikely to be MH370 it required further investigation according to Peter Foley, the ATSB’s Director of the Operational Search for MH370.
“We were cautious about this,” said Mr Foley. “There were characteristics of the contact that made it unlikely to be MH370, but there were also aspects that generated interest, multiple small bright reflections in a relatively small area of otherwise featureless seabed.”
The sonar data goes through a detailed analysis and review process to ascertain quality, coverage and most importantly any contacts of interest.
Analysis starts with the mission crew on board the search vessels then by sonar analysts at Fugro’s office in Perth and finally it is independently reviewed by the sonar experts in the ATSB’s Operational Search team in Canberra.
“The process is methodical, meticulous and it is designed to ensure that nothing is missed,” said Mr Foley. “In this case we planned to resurvey the contact in more detail when the opportunity arose.”
Another search ship Fugro Supporter was tasked to divert on its passage between two search areas and further investigate the contact.
A high-resolution sonar scan was performed using the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle and this scan revealed a large number of sonar contacts lying very close to the seafloor, at a depth of around 3900 metres. 
The majority of the contacts were comparatively small – around the size of a cricket ball – interspersed with a few larger items, the biggest being box shaped and approximately 6 metres in its longest dimension.
An additional AUV low-altitude mission was undertaken using the underwater camera to gather images of the field. Mr Foley said that analysis of the images this week revealed that the debris was indeed man-made, but indicated that it was actually the wreck of a ship. This wreck is previously uncharted and the imagery will be provided to expert marine archaeologists for possible identification.
“It’s a fascinating find,” said Mr Foley. “But it’s not what we’re looking for.”
“We’re not pausing in the search for MH370, in fact the vessels have already moved on to continue the mission. This event has really demonstrated that the systems, people and the equipment involved in the search are working well. It’s shown that if there’s a debris field in the search area, we’ll find it.”
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