FUGRO DISCOVERY

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Latest news

First ship to leave MH370 search as suspension looms

One of the three vessels involved in the underwater search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 that operated flight MH370 will be released from search efforts, ahead of the search's likely suspension. The Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre (JACC) says in a statement that Fugro Discovery will depart from the search area on 11 August to “transit to Singapore to be readied for its next project, unrelated to the search for MH370.” That will leave only two vessels – Fugro Equator and Dong Hai Jiu 101 – to complete the remainder of the search. Fugro Equator continues to conduct the search, while a third vessel – Dong Hai Jiu 101 – docked in Fremantle on 8 August for a scheduled port visit. https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/first-ship-to-leave-mh370-search-as-suspension-looms-428367/

MH370: Vessel which lost ‘towfish’ to resume search

Subject to weather, one of the search vessels for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 is expected to resume its search operations Thursday after experiencing hiccups with the reinstallation of its towed sonar vehicle “towfish”. In a statement today, the Australian Government’s Joint Agency Coordination Centre said the Fugro Discovery, which departed Port Fremantle after a thorough inspection, would join the Fugro Equator and Havila Harmony at the search area. The towfish was reported to have been lost after striking a 2,200-metre high mud volcano on Jan 25. As a result, the towfish’s cable broke and sent the vehicle and its 4.5km cable to the ocean floor. It was then recovered by Havila Harmony and a new cable was fitted to the Fugro Discovery. The agency said another vessel, Dong Hai Jiu 101, was expected to arrive at the search area on Thursday, after departing Port Fremantle. More than 85,000 sq km of the 120,000 sq km of the search area had been covered so far, it added. The MAS aircraft with 239 passengers and crew on board disappeared from the radar screen while enroute to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur on the morning of March 8, 2014. The final flight path of the doomed aircraft is believed to have ended in the southern Indian Ocean. – BERNAMA

Towfish crashed in Indian Ocean

The "Fugro Discovery" was returning to Fremantle, ETA Jan 29, 2016, after a Towfish sonar crashed into an underwater vulcano during the search for the lost MH 370 flight, and the conncecting wire broke and sank in the Indian Ocean on Jan 23. Both the sonar and the 4500 meter long cable were resting in a water depth of 2200 meters.