Hopes set to rise as RMN vessel joins search for MH370

Hopes are set to rise as a Royal Malaysian Navy vessel sets out tomorrow for the southern Indian Ocean in search of a Malaysia Airlines aircraft that has been missing since March 8.

The hydrographic vessel, KD Mutiara, has sophisticated sonar equipment that that can detect objects on the ocean bed up to 7,000 metres deep and employs the bathymetric measurement for defining the objects.

RMN fleet commander Vice Admiral Datuk Mohamad Roslan Ramli is set to flag off KD Mutiara at the RMN Lumut Base operations jetty in Perak at 8.15 am.

KD Mutiara, commissioned on Dec 18, 1977, was built in Butterworth, Penang, by Hong Leong Lurssen Shipyard Sdn Bhd and is the lead ship of the 36th Hydrographic Squadron.

Mohamad Roslan is confident that KD Mutiara would be able to unearth new leads as to the whereabouts of Flight MH370 which dropped off radar on March 8 as it flew from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 227 passengers and 12 crew on board.

The Boeing 777 aircraft has yet to be found, even after an exhaustive search in the southern Indian Ocean where it is believed to have gone down after veering off course.

"I am optimistic that the bathymetric measurement can have a positive impact (on the search) and identify the location of MH370," he told Bernama.

KD Mutiara will have for company the RMN Bunga Mas 6 auxiliary vessel which is already in Australia with two vessels from China and one from Australia.

Mohamad Roslan said the RMN experts and personnel for the latest SAR mission were being finalised.

"Besides the RMN experts and personnel, doctors and 'ustaz' (Islamic religious experts) will also be in the mission to the Indian Ocean," he said.

Work to map the seabed in the 7th arc of the Indian Ocean in an attempt to detect any sign of MH370 is going on smoothly.

A statement issued on July 31 by the Joint Action Coordinating Centre (JACC) stated that the process was being undertaken by the vessels Zhu Kezhen of China and Fugro Equator, a vessel contracted by Australia, and was expected to be completed next month.

The mapping exercise was being done in preparation for a seabed search JACC insists that it is important to scour the seabed in the isolated area of the Indian Ocean that has yet to be fully explored.