Challenging weather ahead for Fugro vessels in MH370 search

The two Fugro vessels scouring the southern Indian Ocean in search of a vanished Malaysia Airlines flight are expected to face challenging weather in the coming week, according to the Australian Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC).

"The weather is forecast to deteriorate in the coming week with anticipated gale force winds and predicted waves of up to six to seven metres," the JACC said in a statement today.

It said the search for Flight MH370 would carry on through the winter months, but pauses were anticipated. The agency said one of the vessels, Fugro Discovery, would resupply at Freemantle port, Australia, in mid-September while the other, Fugro Equator, would resupply in late September.

"More than 60,000 square kilometres of the sea floor have been searched so far," the JACC said.

On Aug 6, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak announced that an aircraft wing part found off the French island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean in July was from MH370, supporting an earlier conclusion that the Malaysia Airlines plane crashed in the southern Indian Ocean about 17 months ago.

Flight MH370 went missing while en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur on March 8, 2014. There were 239 passengers and crew on board.