Australian Defence Vessel (ADV) Ocean Shield deployed its towed pinger locator (TPL) for the first time on the morning of 4 April, as part of its ongoing search for missing Flight MH 370.
Almost 600 nautical miles west of Exmouth, the TPL was towed around 3,500 metres below the surface along the possible flight path of MH 370, in water 4,500 meters deep.
Royal Australian Navy Mission Commander embarked in ADV Ocean Shield, Commander James Lybrand said the personnel from the United States Navy, Phoenix International, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau and the Royal Australian Navy were working closely to narrow the search area.
“Our search area is in the best-predicted flight path and crash location of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH 370,” Commander Lybrand said.
“We need to ascertain if the Flight Data Recorder ‘pinger’ is active – this is needed to plan the next phase of the search.”
A number of search lines will be conducted over the area with a towing speed of around two knots. The TPL will be searching for any emissions from the flight data recorder or cockpit data recorder in the last predicted days of battery life.
Pending a positive and repetitive reading of sound, an autonomous underwater vehicle will be deployed to investigate.
“All underwater search equipment has been tested and this team have the specialist expertise required for acoustic search,” he said.
ADV Ocean Shield is embarked with an additional 34 personnel in support Operation SOUTHERN INDIAN OCEAN to search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.
[mappress] Press Release, April 7, 2014; Image: Navy