“The ship, offered to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull by Premier Li Keqiang of the People’s Republic of China in November 2015, will undertake search operations in the southern Indian Ocean”, Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said in a statement.
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Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 remains missing, and, making matters worse, the search for the plane faced a pair of setbacks this week.
“The total value of the contribution by the People’s Republic of China, including the ship, is around Aus$20 million (US$14 million)”. “It will commence operations in the search area towards the end of February”, the deputy prime minister said.
Flight MH370 with 239 passengers and crew on board, vanished from the radar on March 8, 2014 as it flew from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. An initial hunt along a rugged 60,000-sq km (23,000 sq miles) patch of sea floor off the coast of Perth cost A$120 million but yielded no sign of the plane. “Both companies have experience in the search for MH370 having previously operated on the search vessel GO Phoenix”.
Recently, the Australian search operation had hit an obstacle with its underwater sonar vehicle towfish, attached to the ship Fugro Discovery, which ran aground in the southern expanse of the Indian Ocean after hitting a submerged mud volcano.
“The ship is now in Singapore for mobilization and is expected to depart for Australia on Sunday (January 31)”.
To date, only a flaperon (part of the wing) of the plane was found washed ashore on the Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean.
Earlier this week, Australian authorities said they had lost a deep-water sonar detector that was being used in the search.
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Liow said a team comprising the ministry, the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) and Malaysia Airlines had examined the metal object believed to be plane wreckage that washed up Wednesday on the Terengganu coast.
