The Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Bluefin-21 deployed last night from Australian Defence Vessel Ocean Shield within the MH 370 search mission, Australian JACC said.
After completing around six hours of its mission, Bluefin-21 exceeded its operating depth limit of 4,500 metres and its built in safety feature returned it to the surface.
The six hours of data gathered by the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle is currently being extracted and analysed.
Bluefin-21 is planned to redeploy later today when weather conditions permit.
Today the Australian Maritime Safety Authority has planned a visual search area totalling approximately 62,063 square kilometres. The centre of the search areas lies approximately 2,170 kilometres north west of Perth.
Up to nine military aircraft, two civil aircraft and 11 ships will assist in today’s search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
The weather forecast for today is south easterly winds with scattered showers and isolated thunderstorms, sea swells up to two metres and visibility of five kilometres.
The Chief Coordinator of the Joint Agency Coordination Centre, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston (Ret’d), will provide further updates if, and when, more information becomes available.
[mappress] Press Release, April 15, 2014; Image: Australian Government