AFP, Sydney :
Missing airliner MH370 is “very likely” to be found if it lies in the vast undersea zone now being scoured, and is probably in good condition despite being submerged for 10 months, the Australian search chief told AFP.
Three vessels, with a fourth on the way, are probing the depths of the Indian Ocean off western Australia where the Malaysian Airlines plane carrying 239 people is believed to have crashed.
The jet disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8 last year, and apart from some mysterious satellite “pings” believed to plot its southern course, no sign of it has been found despite a massive air and sea operation.
Relatives of those on board have endured a long wait for answers on what happened to their loved ones, with their torment reawakened by AirAsia Flight QZ8501 crashing into the sea off Indonesia on December 28.
So far, one quarter of the priority underwater search area of 60,000 square kilometres (23,166 square miles) has been checked, while a wider zone of 208,000 square kilometres has been mapped.
Missing airliner MH370 is “very likely” to be found if it lies in the vast undersea zone now being scoured, and is probably in good condition despite being submerged for 10 months, the Australian search chief told AFP.
Three vessels, with a fourth on the way, are probing the depths of the Indian Ocean off western Australia where the Malaysian Airlines plane carrying 239 people is believed to have crashed.
The jet disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8 last year, and apart from some mysterious satellite “pings” believed to plot its southern course, no sign of it has been found despite a massive air and sea operation.
Relatives of those on board have endured a long wait for answers on what happened to their loved ones, with their torment reawakened by AirAsia Flight QZ8501 crashing into the sea off Indonesia on December 28.
So far, one quarter of the priority underwater search area of 60,000 square kilometres (23,166 square miles) has been checked, while a wider zone of 208,000 square kilometres has been mapped.
