Four-vessel simultaneous search for MH370 begins

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Four vessels involved in the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have been simultaneously deployed for the first time in the southern Indian Ocean, an official said Thursday.

Flight MH370, a Boeing 777-200 aircraft, with 239 passengers and crew on board, disappeared March 8, 2014 shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur on its way to Beijing, The Malysian Star reported.

There has been no trace of the wreckage or the bodies from the aircraft since.

"All four vessels have been deployed in the search ops but for the first time all four in the search area at the same time/concurrently #MH370," Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai tweeted.

Three vessels - Go Phoenix, Fugro Equator and Fugro Discovery - are equipped with towed vehicles (towfish) synthetic aperture sonar, side-scan sonar and multi-beam echo sounders.

The Fugro Supporter is equipped with a Kongsberg HUGIN 4500 autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV).

The AUV can turn, ascend and descend rapidly to maintain a constant altitude above the sea floor in areas of challenging topography. The AUV is being used to search areas, which are difficult or inefficient for the towed systems to search.

Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Centre's (JACC) latest operational report stated that search operations were hindered earlier this month due to weather conditions associated with tropical cyclones.

"Conditions prevented the safe launch and retrieval of search equipment between Feb 1 and 5. The vessels evaded the storms and resumed search operations in the following days," the report said.

JACC said more than 22,000sq km of the sea floor or 36 percent of the priority search area has been searched so far.

"Assuming no other significant delays with vessels, equipment or from the weather, the current underwater search area may be largely completed around May," the report added.