Despite having lost out on the MH370 finder's fee of more than $90 million, the underwater exploration company Ocean Infinity after the official search for the lost MH 370 fligth ended on May 28, the 'Seabed Constructor' has continued the hunt, now looking in previously uncharted areas
Despite having lost out on the MH370 finder's fee of more than $90 million, the underwater exploration company Ocean Infinity after the official search for the lost MH 370 fligth ended on May 28, the 'Seabed Constructor' has continued the hunt, now looking in previously uncharted areas. The search would likely wrap up on June 8. Over the past few days, the ship has been searching an area of the southern Indian Ocean where the Chinese navy ship Haixun 01 detected a suspected black box signal less than a month after the plane vanished on March 8, 2014. The 'Seabed Constructor' headed north to that spot after the contract with Malaysia was over, after MH370 watchers, including Ireland-based engineer Viv McMahon, suggested they check it out. On April 5, 2014, the Haixun 01 picked up two separate pulse signals at a latitude of 25 degrees South and 101 degrees East. There was no definitive proof that the signals came from the missing Boeing 777 but they had the same frequency - 37.5 kilohertz - as those emitted by an aircraft black box. Around that time, several white objects were also sighted on the ocean surface about 90km away from Haixun 01. Australian authorities were never able to confirm that the signals or the white objects were from MH370. The ship will head to Dampier in Western Australia for a commercial job but may return to the southern Indian Ocean to search for the plane towards the end of this year or the beginning 2019. The 'Ocean Infinity' has searched more than 125,000sq km of ocean between about 35 degrees South and 26 degrees South, without finding any sign of the plane's fuselage or debris. It stood to earn between $A25 million and $A93 million if it had found the missing plane, but without such a discovery it receives nothing. The Malaysian Government confirmed it would not extend the search again unless there was credible new evidence of the plane's location. A final report on MH370 was to be published in July.
