Vessel attached to Fugro Discovery lost while searching for Malaysia Airlines plane missing with 239 people on board

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

A deep-sea exploration vehicle searching for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has been lost on the ocean floor after colliding with a submerged volcano.

The agency running the search said the collision with the 2,200-metre mud volcano on Sunday broke the cable attaching the Fugro Discovery search vessel to the sonar vehicle, known as a towfish, leaving the towfish and 4,500m of cable on the bed of the Indian Ocean.

MH370 vanished from radar in March 2014 and is believed to have crashed in the Indian Ocean, killing all 239 people on board. An extensive search has been under way for the vessel over the past 18 months.

After initially focusing on visual surveys to try to find floating debris, a new phase for the search began in October 2014 to scour the ocean floor using two vessels, the Fugro Discovery and the GO Phoenix.

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On Sunday the sonar vehicle attached to the Fugro Discovery was lost after it ran into a mud volcano jutting out from the ocean floor.

On Monday the Joint Agency Coordination Centre said: “Yesterday, while conducting search activities in the southern Indian Ocean, Fugro Discovery lost the sonar vehicle deep tow (towfish) being used to search the ocean floor.

“The towfish collided with a mud volcano which rises 2,200 metres from the seafloor resulting in the vehicle’s tow cable breaking. The towfish and 4,500 metres of cable became separated from the vessel and are now resting on the seafloor.”

No injuries were sustained by crew. The centre believes it will be able to recover the vessel. The search for the missing plane continues.