Australian and Malaysian officials met in Canberra on June 10 todiscuss the next stage of a search for missing plane MH370 after a hugeair and sea search failed to find any sign of the aircraft.
Afterthe meeting, a representative from the Joint Agency Coordination Centre(JACC) said that the Australian Transport Safety Bureau is now planningto comb a 60,000 sq.km search zone based on the plane's last satellitecommunication.
Australia has asked Netherlands-basedFugro Survey to help survey the ocean bed as part of the next stage ofthe quest for the Malaysia Airlines plane which vanished three monthsago, said the centre.
The bathymetric (ocean floor) surveywill provide a map of the underwater search zone, charting the contours,depths and composition of the seafloor in water depths up to 6,000metres, it added.
Fugro's state-of-the-art vessel MV FugroEquator, which is equipped with a deep water multibeam echo soundersystem, will work with Chinese PLA-Navy ship Zhu Kezhen on thebathymetric survey of the area.
The two vessels areexpected to take about three months to complete the mapping ahead of theunderwater search by an as-yet undetermined contractor, JACC said.
Fugro said in a statement that its vessel is expected to start mapping in mid-June.
Malaysia's costs for the search mission have so far been aboutone-tenth of the 84 million USD Australia expects to spend on thesearch.
MH370 went missing on March 8 en route from KualaLumpur to Beijing carrying 239 people. It is thought to havecrashed in the southern Indian Ocean-VNA
Afterthe meeting, a representative from the Joint Agency Coordination Centre(JACC) said that the Australian Transport Safety Bureau is now planningto comb a 60,000 sq.km search zone based on the plane's last satellitecommunication.
Australia has asked Netherlands-basedFugro Survey to help survey the ocean bed as part of the next stage ofthe quest for the Malaysia Airlines plane which vanished three monthsago, said the centre.
The bathymetric (ocean floor) surveywill provide a map of the underwater search zone, charting the contours,depths and composition of the seafloor in water depths up to 6,000metres, it added.
Fugro's state-of-the-art vessel MV FugroEquator, which is equipped with a deep water multibeam echo soundersystem, will work with Chinese PLA-Navy ship Zhu Kezhen on thebathymetric survey of the area.
The two vessels areexpected to take about three months to complete the mapping ahead of theunderwater search by an as-yet undetermined contractor, JACC said.
Fugro said in a statement that its vessel is expected to start mapping in mid-June.
Malaysia's costs for the search mission have so far been aboutone-tenth of the 84 million USD Australia expects to spend on thesearch.
MH370 went missing on March 8 en route from KualaLumpur to Beijing carrying 239 people. It is thought to havecrashed in the southern Indian Ocean-VNA
