The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has been ongoing since it mysteriously disappeared in March 2014 as it flew from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Though results have been largely inconclusive, with the occasional discovery of a plane piece, searchers have found something of interest: a 19th-century shipwreck on the ocean floor, according to Delaware Online.
On Dec. 19, as the crew aboard the vessel Havila Harmony searched the Indian Ocean off the west Australian coast, where the missing aircraft is believed to be located, they came across an unusual sonar image.
"An anomalous sonar contact was identified in the course of the underwater search, with analysis suggesting the object was likely to be man-made, probably a shipwreck," said the Joint Agency Coordination Center, the Australian agency directing the search for MH370, according to CNN.
A subsequent search on Jan. 2 yielded a shadowy image using sonar on board an autonomous underwater vehicle, that depicted a ship with a damaged hull at a depth of 12,000 feet underwater. Intrigued by their find, they took the image to experts at the Shipwreck Galleries of the Western Australian Museum who concluded that the wreckage is probably a ship from the early 19th century.
The discovery of a shipwreck is a certain case of déjà vu for searchers, who in March of last year found what appeared to be a man-made object 12,800 feet deep. Hopes were high that it was a piece of the plane, but those hopes were dashed in May when an investigation determined that it was from the wreck of a 19th-century cargo ship, according to The Star.
Searchers have been combing through a 46,000 square mile area, about the size of Pennsylvania, in hopes of finding MH370, with two-thirds of the search area already completed. The search is scheduled to continue up to the middle of the year and will be halted if nothing else of the missing aircraft is found.
