Australia said the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 continued uninterrupted yesterday, even as the head of the search coordination agency was sent to Ukraine to help with the Flight MH17 tragedy.
Australia leads the multinational search for MH370 which disappeared on March 8 carrying 239 people and is believed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean.
It has also been drawn into the latest incident to befall Malaysia Airlines, with 28 nationals and at least nine permanent residents onboard Flight MH17, which was apparently shot down last week in Ukraine.
“The search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which disappeared on March 8 on a flight to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur, continues uninterrupted,” Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said. “We remain fully committed to conducting a thorough undersea search of the likely impact zone in the Indian Ocean.”
On Monday, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott appointed retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston as his special envoy to lead Australia’s efforts on the ground in Ukraine to help recover, identify and repatriate Australians killed in the downing of Flight MH17.
Houston also heads the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC), which coordinates Australia’s support for the Flight MH370 search.
Houston was in Kharkiv, Ukraine, yesterday to receive the bodies of Australian victims of Flight MH17.
Truss said Australia owed it to the families of all of those on board Flight MH370, as well as the travelling public and the wider world, to solve the mystery of what befell the Boeing jet.
“Deputy Coordinator Judith Zielke will oversee the operations of the JACC, ensuring that the public and other stakeholders, particularly the families of those on board, are well informed about the progress of the search,” he said.
Despite an extensive air, sea e and underwater search, no trace of Flight MH370 has been found.
Experts are now surveying an area of about 60,000km2 using two vessels, Chinese survey ship Zhu Kezhen and a contracted vessel, to map the ocean floor, considered crucial for the underwater search.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is coordinating this work, is assessing tenders to engage a contractor to manage this element of the search, Truss said.
“The underwater search is likely to commence in early September and take up to 12 months to complete,” he said. “It will aim to locate the aircraft and any evidence [such as debris and the flight recorders] to assist the Malaysian investigation of the disappearance of MH370.”
Australia has search responsibility under international conventions for the area 1,800km off its west coast, where Flight MH370 is thought to have run out of fuel and crashed.
It has also taken a leadership role in the latest tragedy by moving a UN Security Council resolution on Monday demanding that rebels who hold the crash site in Ukraine cooperate with an independent investigation and allow for victims’ remains to be recovered.
Australia has also sent accident investigation and victim identification experts to Ukraine as well as a C-17 Globemaster military transport jet to take the bodies to the Netherlands for identification.
Additional reporting by AP
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