Malaysia will soon announce deployment of assets to search ocean floor

These will include assets with specific capabilities such as the Multibeam Echo Sounder and the Prosas Towed Side Scan Sonar to join the search efforts in the coming months.

This comes after Australia, Malaysia and China announced a refined search area along the arc in the southern Indian Ocean.

“The details of the contracted assets that will be deployed as Malaysian Government Furnished Equipment for the various stages of both the bathymetric survey and the search of the sea floor will be announced soon,” according to a press statement by Minister of Defence Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein today.

The bathymetric survey – or mapping of the ocean floor – is ongoing with the Chinese survey ship Zhu Kezhen and the Australian-contracted vessel Fugro Equator conducting operations in the areas provided by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.

The survey is expected to complete in three months which will then be followed by a comprehensive search of the sea floor.

Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss announced yesterday that the search for the missing plane has now shifted further south.

The new search zone measures up to 60,000 sq km, on the seventh arc, where the aircraft last communicated with the satellite.

"The new priority area is still focused on the seventh arc, where the aircraft last communicated with satellite. We are now shifting our attention to an area further south along the arc," he said, based on the calculations carried out by the expert satellite working group.