Two of Fugro’s vessels currently searching the southern Indian Ocean for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, were recently involved in a historic find – the discovery of a previously uncharted shipwreck at a depth of around 3900 metres.
The wreck is likely to be that of a nineteenth century merchant sailing ship and so great is the detail that what is believed to be scattered coal can be seen throughout the debris, which may indicate that it had an auxiliary steam-powered engine. The debris also appears to include an anchor. The imagery will be provided to expert marine archaeologists for possible identification.
Analysing Sonar Data
When the deep tow system operated by Fugro Equator detected a cluster of small sonar contacts in the southern part of the search area, 12 nm to the east of the seventh arc, the sonar data was carefully analysed. It was categorised as Class 2 – ‘of potential interest, but unlikely to be related to MH370’.
All sonar data collected by Fugro goes through a detailed analysis and an exhaustive review process to ascertain its quality, coverage and most importantly any sonar contacts of interest. The data is analysed first by the mission crew on board the search vessels, then again ashore by sonar analysts at Fugro’s office in Perth and then it is independently reviewed by the sonar experts in the Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s (ATSB) Operational Search team.
Sonar Scan
The Fugro Supporter was tasked to further investigate the contact, performing a high resolution sonar scan using Fugro’s Echo Surveyor VII autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). The high resolution data revealed a large number of sonar contacts lying very close to the seafloor, at a depth of around 3900 metres. The majority of the contacts were comparatively small – around the size of a cricket ball – interspersed with a few larger items, the biggest being approximately 6 metres in its longest dimension. Although the debris field appeared to be of man-made origin, it did not exhibit all the characteristics of a typical aircraft debris field.
An additional AUV low-altitude mission was then undertaken using the underwater camera to gather images of the field. Analysis of the images revealed that the debris was actually the wreck of a ship.
Fugro’s search director Paul Kennedy of Fugro Survey explained: 'This find […] shows we are able to find small pieces of metal on the seafloor, a long way down. Pieces from MH370 would be roughly ten times as big as those of the wrecked ship.'
Extended Search
Senior Ministers from Malaysia, Australia and the People's Republic of China recently agreed to extend the search by an additional 60,000 square kilometres to bring the search area to 120,000 square kilometres and thereby cover the entire highest probability area identified by expert analysis. The additional search area may take up to a year to complete given the adverse weather conditions in the approaching winter months.
