The Australian Defence Vessel (ADV) Ocean Shield will deploy a mini-sub to join in the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, the country’s Joint Agency Coordination Centre confirmed.
“Ocean Shield will cease searching with the towed pinger locator and deploy the autonomous underwater vehicle Bluefin-21 as soon as possible,” JACC head Angus Houston as saying. Houston stressed on the fact that it has been 38 days since the jet went missing on March 8 and the blackbox batteries which have a shelf life of only 30 days, might have died down already.
The US-made Bluefin-21, a 4.93 metre (16.2 feet) long sonar device will now scour the seabed on a 24-hour cycle covering a search area of 40 sq. km, the report said. Up to 12 aircraft and 15 ships have been deployed in Monday’s search.
