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Flight MH370 Search Team Finds Another Old Shipwreck, But Still No Plane
The Australian search team tasked with finding the remains of the Malaysian Airline jet that vanished along with 239 passengers nearly two years ago has found a second centuries-old shipwreck — but still no plane.
The search team was conducting its exhaustive search of the Indian Ocean’s floor on Dec. 19 when underwater Sonar alerted the crew to a man-made object along the west Australian coast. After high-resolution images were taken Jan. 2, the team was able to confirm that it was yet another ship, officials announced Wednesday.
Experts at the Western Australian Museum think that the latest find was probably a metal or iron vessel dating back to the 19th century, much like the previous ship that the Australian Transport Safety Bureau announced it had found last summer. That destroyed ship was found with the help of underwater drones scouring the area.
It is difficult to pinpoint the exact origin of an ancient ship at the bottom of the sea, Michael McCarthy, the curator of Australia’s WA Maritime Museum said at the time. “The best we can do at the moment is a mid-to late 19th century wooden hull, iron sailing ship of unknown origin but of European-style build,” he added.
With the exception of a wing that washed up on an Indian Ocean island in 2015, finding any remains of the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 that disappeared in March 2014 has proved exceedingly difficult. The flight was headed to Bejing Capital International Airport from Malaysia, carrying mostly Chinese citizens, when it disappeared after deviating from its flight path. All 239 passengers on the flight have been presumed dead.
The search teams — which include crews from Malaysia, China and Australia — have already checked two thirds of their 46,000 square mile search zone without finding the Boeing 777 jet.
“The expression ‘like finding a needle in a haystack’ shouldn’t be used to describe (search-and-rescue) and recovery at sea,” the Soufan Group, a security intelligence firm, wrote in a briefing about the missing plane. “A more accurate expression would be like finding a drifting needle in a chaotic, color-changing, perception-shifting, motion-sickness-inducing haystack.”
There are plans to halt search efforts if no evidence is found between now and summer 2016. By completion, the search will be the most expensive in aviation history, the BBC reported.
Despite not turning up any remnants of the plane, however, the search has been a success from a scientific standpoint. Over the past couple years, the search for Flight 370 has uncovered troves of new information about the belly of the Indian Ocean, an area that scientists previously knew little about compared to other oceanic floors.
The valuable time at sea has gifted researchers with information about currents, marine life, previously uncharted underwater volcanoes and the constantly-changing sea floor.
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