Second ship to join MH370 search in Indian Ocean

SYDNEY — A second ship was yesterday preparing to join the hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in a remote patch of the Indian Ocean, as Malaysia’s Defence Minister expressed confidence the plane would be found.

The Discovery, provided by Dutch contractor Fugro, had been scheduled to arrive in the search zone about 1,800km west of Australia yesterday, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said in a statement.

Another ship, the Go Phoenix, a Malaysian vessel that has been combing the area since early October, was yesterday in the Western Australian city of Fremantle getting fresh supplies. It was expected to leave for the search site today.

Malaysian Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, who was in Australia to greet the Go Phoenix during its return to port, said everything possible was being done to find the Boeing 777, which inexplicably disappeared on March 8 during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board.

“We must continue to hope, because sometimes hope is all we have,” he said, during the visit, during which he was briefed by the Australian officials leading the deep sea search. “We will find MH370.”

The search ships are dragging sonar devices called towfish through the water about 100m above the seabed to hunt for wreckage. The towfish, which are also equipped with jet fuel sensors, transmit data in real time to those on the vessels.

The underwater search resumed in early October after being on hold for four months while crews mapped the seabed in the 60,000sqkm search zone.

The Go Phoenix has searched more than 1,200sqkm so far.

Despite a massive air and sea search, not a single piece of debris from the plane has been found.

Australian officials are still receiving reports from people who believe they have found wreckage washed up along the Australian coastline, but all have been false alarms.

Drift modelling by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority has shown any floating debris would probably have travelled west, away from Australia. For that reason, Canberra has asked Indonesian officials to be on the lookout for any wreckage, as it is possible some may have drifted to the country’s coastline, the transport safety bureau said.

Meanwhile, a third ship, the Fugro Equator, is still mapping areas of the search zone and will join the hunt once that is complete, probably in the next week or so.

The search is expected to take up to a year. Agencies