Nearly two months after Malaysia Airlines Flight Mh 370 disappeared, the countries involved in the missing plane’s search are plotting their next steps.
Malaysian, Chinese, and Australian officials are set to meet on Wednesday to figure out what to do next, CNN reported on Monday.
This comes as Bangladeshi ships are searching the Bay of Bengal after an Australian company, GeoResonance, said that it may have spotted debris there. A few days ago, Australian officials dismissed the company’s claims.
“The Australian led search is relying on information from satellite and other data to determine the missing aircraft’s location. The location specified by the GeoResonance report is not within the search arc derived from this data,” the Joint Agency Coordination Center said in a statement obtained by The Associated Press. “The joint international team is satisfied that the final resting place of the missing aircraft is in the southerly portion of the search arc.”
GeoResonance noted that it’s not certain that it found the missing plane’s wreckage, but Bangladesh decided to investigate. According to BDNews24, the BNS Bangabandhu and BNS Anusandhan were said to be searching the Bay of Bengal starting last Tuesday night.
Bangladesh’s Navy previously hunted for the wreckage in the Bay of Bengal weeks ago before suspending the operation.
GeoResonance official David Pope said the technology they used was designed to search for nuclear warheads and nuclear submarines. The company said it looked at more than 2 million square kilometers.
“The wreckage wasn’t there prior to the disappearance of MH370,” Pope said.
Australian said that the next phase of the search will go even deeper into the Indian Ocean, costing another $60 million.
“We know that the water is very deep,” Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss told CNN this week. “And for the next stage involving sonar and other autonomous vehicles, potentially at very great depths, we need to have an understanding of the ocean floor to be able to undertake that kind of search effectively and safely.”
The next step will focus on 60,000 square kilometers of Indian Ocean floor.
