Vessel reaches missing flight search zone

SYDNEY: A vessel hired to search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 and solve one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries has reached the remote spot in the Indian Ocean where Australian scientists believe the plane went down, Reuters shipping data shows.

Flight MH370 disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014 with 239 people on board.

Investigators believe someone may have deliberately switched off MH370’s transponder before diverting it over the Indian Ocean. Debris has been collected from islands and Africa’s east coast and at least three pieces have been confirmed as coming from the missing plane.

Malaysia agreed earlier this month to pay US firm Ocean Infinity up to $70 million (R850m) if it finds the plane within 90 days. The search vessel, the Seabed Constructor, set off from Durban on January 3. It is equipped with eight autonomous submersibles that can search a wide area of the sea floor faster than tethered scanners used in previous searches, said Charitha Pattiaratchi, professor of coastal oceanography at the University of Western Australia. “If they don’t find anything in the 90 days… I think that would be the end for decades – this is the final effort,” he said.

Reuters data, which is supplied from an automated tracking system, shows the vessel reached the search zone on Sunday and yesterday was tracking towards a spot that Australia’s scientific agency believes with “unprecedented precision and certainty” is the most likely location of the aircraft.

Australia, Malaysia and China called off their two-year search a year ago after finding nothing in a 120 000km² underwater search zone.