MH370: AUVs in final sweep after search ends

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May 31, 2018
MH370 abbott Pm search
The Hugin autonomous underwater vehicles used to search for MH370. Photo: Ocean Infinity.

A new animation shows the high-tech vessel tasked with finding missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 launching three more autonomous underwater vehicles for a last sweep of the ocean floor after the search officially ended this week.

A spokesman for search company Ocean Infinity confirmed to AirlineRatings on May 30 that the Seabed Constructor would remain for a few days to sweep an area in which a Chinese vessel detected a ping.

This was an area, at 25 degrees south and 101 degrees east, where a Chinese patrol ship detected a pulse in 2014 that at the time was thought to be possibly from one of the aircraft’s black boxes.

A twitter post by UK expert Richard Cole mapped the paths of the AUVs.

“Three more AUV missions started,’’ Cole says in his tweet. “The positioning of the last launch in the north suggests the gaps between AUV tracks have been opened out again.

“Indicated is where I understand a Chinese ship scanned for black-box acoustic pings in 2014.’’

The move comes after The Malaysian Government said it wanted a final report on the Missing Boeing 777 published by July but added that the  “aspiration” to find the wreckage would not be abandoned.

It officially ended the search on  Tuesday after Seabed Constructor and its fleet of eight underwater drones searched an area of  112,000 sq.kms without finding the wreckage.

In a statement issued Wednesday, new Malaysian Transport Minister Loke Siew Fook urged the International Civil Aviation Organization Annex 13 investigation to finalize the report into the crash “in the near future to be published by July hopefully”.

Unlike the analysis used to determine the search areas, the Annex 13 investigation can look into possible causes of the accident.

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It involves representatives from seven international air crash investigation organizations from Australia, China, France, Indonesia, Singapore, the UK and the US.

“I wish to reiterate that the aspiration to locate MH370 will never be abandoned and we remain ever hopeful that we will be able to find the answers we seek and new information will come to light and that at some point in the future the aircraft will be located,’’ Loke said.

“We remain steadfast in our unwavering commitments towards solving the mystery of MH370 to bring some closure to this unfortunate incident.”

The Malaysian government refused to extend the search and sent mixed messages about its commitment to continue the hunt.

READ: MH370 company hopes to resume the search in future.

Ocean Infinity , which conducted the search a no find, no fee basis that could have earned it up to $US70 million, has said it hopes to be able to resume the operation.

“Whilst clearly the outcome so far is extremely disappointing, as a company, we are truly proud of what we have achieved both in terms of the quality of data we’ve produced and the speed with which we covered such a vast area,” Ocean Infinity chief executive Oliver Plunkett said.

“There simply has not been a subsea search on this scale carried out as efficiently or as effectively ever before.

“We sincerely hope that we will be able to again offer our services in the search for MH370 in future.”

Ocean Infinity’s next job is with a resources company believed to be Woodside Energy.