Finding floating debris of the crashed Malaysian jet is “highly unlikely”, Australian premier Tony Abbott said on Monday as the arduous search for the plane’s wreckage entered a new phase in the Indian Ocean, with intensified underwater hunt expanding to a “much larger” area.
“I am now required to say to you that it is highly unlikely at this stage that we will find any aircraft debris on the ocean surface,” Abbott said at a news conference.
“By this stage, 52 days into the search, most material would have become water-logged and sunk,” he said.
Describing the Australia-led hunt as “probably the most difficult search in human history”, Abbott said the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 will be entering a new phase that will use private contractors. It may cost nearly US $60 million and will take about six to eight months.
“I’m here to inform you that the search will be entering a new phase. We are moving from the current phase to a phase which is focused on searching the ocean floor over a much larger area,” Abbott said in Canberra. The new phase will focus on searching the ocean floor over a much greater area — 60,000 square kms.
He insisted that the prolonged hunt for the wreckage of the Boeing 777-200 — that mysteriously went missing on March 8 with 239 people on board, including five Indians, and believed crashed in the Indian Ocean - is “certainly not ending”.