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Australia Resumes Search For Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

A photo made available on Monday of the Fugro Discovery search vessel moored at Fremantle Port in Perth, Australia. The vessel is one of three that will resume the search for possible wreckage from MH370.
Angie Raphael
/
EPA/Landov
A photo made available on Monday of the Fugro Discovery search vessel moored at Fremantle Port in Perth, Australia. The vessel is one of three that will resume the search for possible wreckage from MH370.

Six months after Malaysia Airlines MH370 disappeared from radar en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, Australia has resumed a search in the Indian Ocean for possible wreckage.

The Associated Press says: "The GO Phoenix is one of three ships that will spend up to a year hunting for the wreckage. It arrived in the search area about 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles) west of Australia on Monday. [Two other] ships will join the hunt later this month."

The Boeing 777, with 239 people aboard vanished without a trace on March 8, triggering a massive, and so far unsuccessful, search that has spanned the Gulf of Thailand to remote stretches of the southern ocean.

The Australian says: "The search has been on hold for four months so crews could map the seabed in the search zone, about 1,800 kilometres west of Australia. The 60,000-square kilometre search site lies along what is known as the 'seventh arc' — a stretch of ocean where investigators believe the aircraft ran out of fuel and crashed. Officials analysed transmissions between the plane and a satellite to estimate where it entered the water.

The GO Phoenix will tow underwater sensors over the sea floor scanning for traces of jet fuel and use sonar and video in the search, according to the BBC.

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Scott Neuman is a reporter and editor, working mainly on breaking news for NPR's digital and radio platforms.