The Australian government announced on Wednesday that it has selected Dutch multinational company Fugro to continue the search of the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.
The search will focus on possible crash areas in the southern Indian Ocean. The oil-and-gas consulting firm underwent a comprehensive and month-long selection process. The Australian government assessed the different bids of various groups that have the required proficiency to help in the search for the missing flight. The initial search area of the latest site was set at 20,000 square miles but might be expanded sometime in September.
According to CNN, Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss announced that Fugro will use two of their vessels to ferry the necessary equipment in the search for the plane. Equipment used for the search will include tow materials for towing deep-water vehicles and video cameras. The Malaysian Airlines flight was last seen on March 8 while it was travelling to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur. The flight carried 239 crew and passengers.
"I remain cautiously optimistic that we will locate the missing aircraft within the priority search area, but this search will obviously be a challenging one," Mr. Truss told the Wall Street Journal.
The search for the missing plane was briefly forgotten after another Malaysia Airlines plane was attacked while flying over Ukraine. After Flight 370 went missing, different governments quickly dispatched search units, but none was successful in finding a clue that may lead to the exact location of the missing plane.
Aside from scanning the possible crash site for debris, officials also changed the search area a few times. In June, the Transport Safety Bureau of Australia expanded the search area by as much as 600 miles south of where the current search area was identified.
As of the moment, Fugro has already dispatched its vessel to go to Perth from the United Kingdom. Another vessel, the Fugro Equator vessel will also be used to gather bathymetry data in cooperation with Chinese ship Zhu Kezhen. The bathymetry data will be used in searching the ocean floor for debris.
