The British nuclear submarine HMS Tireless approaches the port of Gibraltar in this file photo. — AFP photo
PERTH, Australia: The protracted search for missing Flight MH370 was boosted yesterday with the arrival of a British nuclear submarine in the Indian Ocean, ahead of a visit to Australia by Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.
The personal jet of Oscar-winning New Zealand movie director Peter Jackson is also now reportedly being used in the multinational hunt for the plane that vanished on March 8 with 239 people on board.
Despite extensive scouring of remote Indian Ocean waters by planes and ships southwest of Perth where Malaysia believes the jet went down, nothing has been found so far that would indicate a crash site.
“No significant developments to report,” the Australian Maritime Safety Authority tweeted after 10 planes returned from flying sorties on Tuesday evening in a now familiar update on drawing a blank.
Ten planes and nine ships resumed the hunt yesterday although authorities warned broken cloud, sea fog and isolated thunderstorms would reduce visibility.
But in a boost to the search effort, Britain’s Royal Navy said the first submarine in the operation — HMS Tireless — has arrived in the area and ‘with her advanced underwater search capability will be able to contribute to the attempts to locate the missing plane’.
Britain’s HMS Echo is also due in the search zone shortly to assist Australia’s Ocean Shield naval vessel, which is fitted with a US-supplied ‘black box’ detector and is expected to arrive tomorrow.
Jackson, the director of the ‘Lord of the Rings’ and ‘The Hobbit’ movies, has personally approved the use of his Gulfstream G650 in the search, Radio New Zealand said.
His spokesman reportedly said the company which operates the long-range aircraft had chartered it to Australian authorities.
The battery-powered signal from MH370’s black box — which records flight data and cockpit voice communications that could indicate what happened — usually lasts only about 30 days, with time fast running out to find it.
Australia has warned against expectations of quick success in the difficult task of recovering the black box from the deep and vast seas.
Retired Australian air chief marshal Angus Houston, who is heading a new coordination centre in Perth, reiterated yesterday that the odds were stacked against them.
“The reality is it’s the most complex and challenging search and recovery operation I’ve ever seen,” he told national radio.
“We have to keep searching and searching with vigour, because what’s really vital here is to find some wreckage, some debris on the surface of the ocean.
“It’s only through that that we’ll hopefully lead to where the aircraft is on the bottom of the ocean.” — AFP