MH370: Bluefin-21 Had To Abort Its Mission Earlier Than Expected
An unmanned mini submarine that started an underwater search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean has had abort its first mission on April 14, 2014, Monday, earlier than expected.
The Bluefin-21 dived deep to scan the sea floor in search for the point of wreckage. However, after completing around six hours of its mission, the robotic submarine exceeded its operating limit of 4,500m and was brought back to the surface. The submersible has a safety feature that brought it back to the surface if it had exceeded its performance capabilities.
Moreover, the weather conditions in the area have worsened. The multinational search team hope that they would improve during April 15, 2014, Tuesday. In this case, the drone would be sent back into the ocean depth immediately.
Six hours of data were downloaded and analysed. Nothing important has been found in so far. The search team also considers brining in larger vehicles that could go deeper than the Bluefin-21, but the final decision depends on "the outcome of what we find when we go down and take a look (with a smaller submarine)," coordinators of the search mission said.
No new signals have been registered since April 8, 2014, which may mean that the batteries of the ‘black boxes’ are now discharged completely.
Therefore, this phase of search may take days, months, years, or may even never bring results.
Recovering the flight recorders, which disappeared on March 8, 2014, carrying 239 people on board is seen as the key to understanding what happened to the plane.
Source: Legit.ng
