Confirmed MH370 wing part won't change search: Australia

[News Bandit]

SYDNEY (AFP) - Confirmation that a plane part that washed up on a remote island was from missing jet MH370 was useful but would not alter the search for the plane, Australian investigators said Friday.

 

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[themehta]

The Air France captain was flying at 3,000 metres (10,000 feet) towards the Reunion's Roland-Garros airport when he spotted the debris around 70km (44 miles) away from the north of the island. 

The sighting comes just two weeks after French officials confirmed debris discovered on July 29 was from the missing Boeing 777. 

The plane carrying 239 passengers disappeared on March 8 last year while travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. 

The pilot, flying from Paris to Reunion, said he had seen a "white object" in the Indian Ocean at 9.38am approximately 44 miles away from Reunion which could possibly be debris from the missing jet. 

Siva Vadivelou, assistant director of the French Civil Aviation Authority in Reunion, said it must have been a large object for the captain to have seen it from such a high altitude.

 

Local police confirmed armed forces flew over the southern zone of the Indian Ocean in a Casa marine surveillance aircraft and that a vessel was also diverted to the area.

But no trace of the debris was found, despite good search conditions.

REUTERS

A piece of debris found on Reunion was confirmed as form MH370 two weeks ago

Despite favourable sea conditions, no debris was found in the zone

A police spokesman

A police spokesman said: "The plane flew over the zone at low altitude for an hour where the initial sighting was reported and took drift calculations into account.

"Despite favourable sea conditions, no debris was found in the zone."

The Australian Transport Bureau is leading the search for the missing MH370 jet. 

 

Investigators believe the flight went down in the southeastern Indian Ocean and searchers have focused their search for the bulk of the plane at the bottom of the ocean off western Australia. 

Australian officials said they were confident the plane would be found in the search area, which is scheduled to have been completely combed by the end of June 2016.

[themehta]

The search for MH370 will cover old ground in the coming weeks, using more accurate sonar to take a closer look at flagged locations of interest.

 

 

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau announced yesterday that the Fugro Discovery – one of two vessels currently involved in the official search – has been tasked with re-examining “classification two contacts.”

 

 

Classification two contacts are described as locations or objects of more interest than classification three contacts but still unlikely to be significant to the search.

 

 

Classification one contacts warrant immediate investigation.

 

 

“During this swing, Fugro Discovery will resurvey several Classification 2 contacts identified previously during the underwater search,” the statement said.

 

VIDEO Forensics Confirms Debris Belongs to Missing MH370

 

 

“More than thirty Classification 2 contacts have been identified to date.

 

 

“The resurvey of Classification 2 contacts will be conducted using the deep-tow at lower altitude and using higher frequency sonar.

 

 

“The higher resolution data from this method will enable the search team to identify the relevance of such contacts without the need to await the arrival of the autonomous underwater vehicle, which cannot be deployed until the weather improves in the summer months.

 

 

“The search for MH370 is being conducted thoroughly and to a very high standard and it is important that contacts are comprehensively investigated and considered.”

 

 

Fugro Discovery returned to the 120,000sqkm search area in the remote southern Indian Ocean on Monday after a resupply stop in Fremantle.

 

 

 

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The second survey vessel, Fugro Equator, is undergoing maintenance in Henderson and is due to depart for the search area on Saturday.

 

 

Wild weather has hampered search efforts in the past few months, with the ATSB reporting gale-force winds and seven-metre waves in late August.

 

 

The Fugro search vessels were “winterised” to enable a modified search to continue in rough conditions.

 

 

Each vessel pulls a “towfish” equipped with side-scan sonar which sits about 100m above the sea floor and scans 2.4km-wide strips of the search area.

 

 

The weather is slowly clearing, however, potentially paving the way for the use of an autonomous underwater vehicle which has spent the winter in Fremantle.