Malaysia Airlines MH370: Submarine completes first full scan of seabed
Fri 18 Apr 2014, 5:02 AM AEST
The Bluefin-21 failed to find any object of interest in its first mission.
Bluefin Robotics
A deep-sea drone has completed its much-anticipated first full scan of the seabed in the remote Indian Ocean in the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.Footage from a US Navy deep-sea drone is fast becoming the most important tool for the multinational team searching for the plane, which disappeared from radar screens on March 8 with 239 people on board, six of them Australians.A sample taken from an oil slick in the same area, some 2,000 kilometres west of Perth, was analysed and found not to be aircraft engine oil or hydraulic fluid.Authorities believe this is the most likely area where the jet hit the ocean after disappearing.A series of "pings" recorded this month have led searchers to the remote stretch of ocean in the belief that the signals may have come from the plane's flight recorders.However, with no pings received in more than a week and the black box's battery now 10 days past its approximate expiry date, authorities are relying on the drone.The Bluefin-21 autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) completed its first full 16-hour deployment at a depth of 4.5 kilometres late on Wednesday after a series of technical problems cut short the first two attempts."Bluefin-21 has searched approximately 90 square kilometres to date and the data from its latest mission is being analysed," the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) said in a statement.The agency also said Bluefin-21 would go deeper as there was "a small but acceptable level of risk in operating the vehicle in depths in excess of 4.5 kilometres".Search focus shifts to ocean floorOn Monday, the search coordinator, retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, said the air and surface search for debris would likely end in three days as the operation shifted its focus to the largely unmapped area of ocean floor.However, authorities said on Thursday up to 10 military aircraft, two civil aircraft and 11 ships would still search an area totalling about 40,000 square kilometres. That would suggest searchers, under pressure from the families of those on board the plane, still hold some hope of finding floating wreckage.Prime Minister Tony Abbott was quoted by the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday as saying that "we believe that (underwater) search will be completed within a week or so. If we don't find wreckage, we stop, we regroup, we reconsider".Malaysia's defence minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, vowed the search would continue even if there was a pause to regroup and reconsider the best area to scour.
What is the Bluefin-21? An autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) designed for deep-sea surveying.It has a "swappable payload". It will first use sonar in the search and will be refitted with cameras if something is detected.It's 5m long and weighs 750kg. Has an endurance of 25 hours underwater at a speed of 3 knots, with a top speed of 4 knots.It has a depth rating of 4,500m, meaning it will be at its limit in the Indian Ocean search zone.Bluefin Robotics says its AUV can also be used for archaeology, oceanography, mine countermeasures, and unexploded ordnance. "The search will always continue. It's just a matter of approach," he told a news conference in Kuala Lumpur.He said Mr Abbott remained in close contact with Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak and the two had spoken on Thursday to discuss the search."They've been looking for 40 days and haven't found anything floating yet," Geoffrey Dell, Associate Professor of Accident Investigation and Forensics at Central Queensland University, said."You'd have to start saying there's either nothing to find or let's move elsewhere," he said.As well as the Bluefin-21, authorities are relying on daily modelling of ocean currents provided by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation's (CSIRO) Marine and Atmospheric Research unit, which may give clues about how any surface debris may have dispersed."People are spending a lot of their time at the moment looking at the daily models to provide updates," Nick Hardman-Mountford, the CSIRO's principal marine scientist said."The winds, ocean currents, the time and cyclones passing through, they can all have an influence on what the ocean currents are doing and the model has to be able to capture all of this," Mr Hardman-Mountford said.Air Chief Marshal Houston has hinted that the search, although not over, may already rank as the most expensive in aviation history, although authorities are yet to put even an approximate price tag on it. ABC/Reuters
The search for MH370
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