If minisub fails what next for MH370

Written By Unknown on Selasa, 15 April 2014 | 20.01

The first underwater search for the missing MH370 jet has been aborted 10 hours short of schedule.

All the news you need to know.

Returned empty-handed on its first descent ... the US Navy's Bluefin-21 being moved into position for deployment aboard ADF Ocean Shield. Source: AFP

IT works like a lawnmower scouring the bottom of the ocean in a back-and-forth pattern but the Bluefin-21 is at the edge of its limits searching for missing Flight MH370.

Search teams looking for the Malaysia Airlines flight deep beneath the Indian Ocean are developing back-up plans in case the minisub is unable to descend far enough to locate any wreckage.

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Weighing 750kg, the American-built Bluefin-21 is capable of working at a maximum depth of 4500m, the average depth of the stretch of the southern Indian Ocean it is searching.

Its first mission had to be aborted, 10 hours short of its scheduled time, because waters in parts of the search area 2200km northwest of Perth were too deep for the vessel.

The Bluefin-21 ... Can scan to a depths deeper than 4500 metres but was hauled back halfway through first search. Source: AP

"The Bluefin-21 can scan to depths deeper than 4500m," a Joint Agency Coordination Centre spokesman said.

"However, the sonar imaging becomes less effective as the scan depth increases. There are small portions of the current search area where the actual depth may exceed the charted depth."

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The 4.9m minisub is able to work for 25 hours at a time, using side-scan sonar to create a 3D map of the area to chart any debris on the ocean floor. It needs two hours to descend to the bottom of the ocean and can scan the ocean floor for 16 hours.

"When it reaches the appropriate depth, it will turn on its sensors," David Kelly, the president and CEO of manufacturer Bluefin Robotics, said.

"It will then run what's called the lawnmower pattern, which is a series of parallel lines or tracks, where it will go back and forth just like mowing your lawn."

It takes another two hours to return to the surface.

Searchers are looking at whether another much larger vessel with wreckage recovery capability is needed.

James Cook University marine geologist Dr Robin Beaman said there were a number of other vehicles that could potentially be used, including the REMUS 6000 — a 3.8m autonomous minisub capable of descending to 6000m.

With the hopes of most of the world's population ... The Bluefin-21 is deployed from ADV Ocean Shield in the search of the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in the southern Indian Ocean. Source: AP

The REMUS 6000 was used in search and recovery efforts to locate the Titanic and Air France Flight 447.

Dr Beaman said whichever minisub was ultimately used for the mission, it would "basically be flying in the dark".

The area of oceanfloor that is being searched is part of the Zenith Plateau in the eastern Indian Ocean, which was last mapped in the 1950s or 1960s. Very little is known about its surface.


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