Sydney/Perth: The search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 entered its 44th day on Sunday as Australian search officials said a crucial series of sonar scans of the Indian Ocean floor could be completed within a week.
The air, surface and underwater search is now focused on footage taken by a US Navy deep sea drone, which has narrowed its target range to a tight 10-kilometre circle of sea floor.
The Bluefin-21 autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) has spent the past week scouring the remote and largely unmapped stretch of ocean floor some 2,000 kilometres northwest of Perth for signs of the plane, which disappeared on March 8 with 239 people on board.
The remote controlled submarine is now in its eighth deep sea mission with no sign of wreckage so far. The drone has searched about half its targeted area, the authorities said on Sunday.
The Malaysian government has said the search is at a “very critical juncture” and asked for prayers for its success.
Malaysian Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussain has also said the government may consider using more AUVs in the search.
After almost two months without a sign of wreckage, the current underwater search is centred on an area where one of four acoustic signals believed to be from the plane’s black box recorders was detected on April 8.
Hopes for further black box signals are fast diminishing, since the black box batteries are now two weeks past their 30-day expected lifespan, search officials have said.
But while the Bluefin-21’s target range has narrowed, the air and surface search continues unabated, with daily sorties a week after Australian search coordinator retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston said the air and surface component of the search would end within three days.
On Sunday, up to 11 military aircraft and 12 ships will help with the search, covering a total of roughly 48,507 square kilometres (18,729 square miles) across two areas, the Perth-based Joint Agency Coordination Centre, said in a statement.
A senior Malaysian official on Sunday met with relatives of those people to discuss financial aid.
Hamzah Zainuddin, deputy minister for foreign affairs, said the relatives present during the meeting in Kuala Lumpur agreed to submit individual proposals for a financial assistance package.
“We touched on the topic of financial assistance in the meeting this morning, and (the relatives) have decided that they will propose a plan for financial assistance, which will be emailed to us as soon as possible,” he said in a statement.
Hamzah, who also the chairman of a committee in charge of dealing with the next of kin, said his team has met with embassies of countries whose citizens were among those aboard the missing plane.
Hamzah said he assigned an emissary to meet with Chinese government officials, whose citizens comprised two thirds of the 239 people aboard the missing plane, to discuss ways and means to assist the next of kin of passengers from China.
He added he would be going to Beijing soon to meet Chinese officials, to ensure that relations between Malaysia and China “will continue to be strong and unaffected by the MH370 issue.”
Prime Minister Najeeb Razak said the disappearance of the plane appeared to be a deliberate act and the aircraft was believed to have been lost in the Indian Ocean.
