The next phase in the underwater search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has begun.
The GO Phoenix search vessel arrived in the search area in the southern Indian Ocean and started its search Monday morning (Sunday evening ET), the Australian Transport Safety Board (ATSB) said. It marks the beginning of a potentially year-long search operation, spearheaded by Australian authorities.
The ship, and two others which will arrive within the month, will conduct detailed sonar sweeps in an attempt to locate wreckage of the plane.
The disappearance of MH370 is arguably the greatest mystery in the history of commercial flight, with an extensive search failing to turn up a single piece of definitive evidence of its whereabouts.
Here’s where we are with the search for MH370.
What happened initially?
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“If you have a debris field identified, to be able to know what to do with it requires careful mapping and photographing, which will take up to a month,” he says. “Until we’ve got that largely completed we won’t understand the sequence of what we’re able to do in relation to wreckage and human remains.”
What happens if they don’t find it within the current search timetable?
There is AUS $60 million ($52.8 mil) earmarked by the Australian government for mapping and underwater search, and Australian expenditure is to be matched by Malaysian government. It is a significant resource upon which to draw, Dolan says.
However, “if at the end of that we haven’t found the aircraft, then it’s really going to be a matter for governments to decide what’s next what resources they might wish to supply and I can’t really preempt what that discussion might be.”
A new air of “cautious optimism” pervades the search teams, yet it seems that there are still plenty of uncertainties to overcome before the MH370 mystery is finally put to rest.
CNN’s David Molko contributed to this report
