REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, SYDNEY/PERTH - A US Navy underwater drone called Blue-fin 21 will be deployed to scour the floor of the Indian Ocean for a missing Malaysia Airlines plane, search officials said on Monday. Blue-fin 21 autonomous underwater vehicle, is the robot set to search the ocean floor for wreckage some 4.5 kms (2.8 miles) beneath the surface.
The hunt for flight MH370 would head deep underwater as the batteries in the flight's black box recorders had probably died and there was little chance of finding floating debris, said Australian search chief Angus Houston.
"Despite the lack of further detections, the four signals previously acquired taken together constitute the most promising lead we have in the search for MH370," Houston told reporters in Perth.
"The experts have therefore determined that the Australian Ocean Shield will cease searching with a towed pinger locator later today and deploy the autonomous underwater vehicle, 'Bluefin-21', as soon as possible," he said, referring to the US Navy device designed to detect the tell-tale "pings".
The batteries in the black boxes are now two weeks past their 30-day expected life and searchers will be relying on sonar and cameras on the Bluefin-21 drone. The Blue-fin robot will build up a detailed acoustic image of the area using sophisticated 'sidescan' sonar, hoping to repeat its success in finding a F-15 fighter jet which crashed off Japan last year.
If it detects possible wreckage, it will be sent back to photograph it in underwater conditions with extremely low light.
Building up the necessary mosaic of thousands of high-definition photos in the undersea gloom can be a long and frustrating task, a point Houston reiterated on Monday, citing the extremely large, remote and deep search area.
An aircraft's black box records data from the cockpit and conversations among flight crew and may provide answers about what happened to the missing plane. The aircraft disappeared soon after taking off on March 8 from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing with 227 passengers and 12 crew on board, triggering a multinational search that is now focused on the Indian Ocean.
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