The two-year Australian-led hunt for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has begun to draw to a close, after it was announced one of the search vessels will depart the area to rendezvous with its next project.
Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) released its latest operational update for the search for MH370 on Wednesday, and said that more than 110,000 square kilometers of the 120,000 square kilometer search zone in the southern Indian Ocean had been probed to no avail.
One of the search vessels, "Fugro Discovery", will depart the search area on Thursday after commencing operations in the hunt for MH370 on Oct. 23, 2014.
"(Fugro Discovery will depart) the search area on Aug.11, 2016, to undertake mandatory scheduled maintenance, bringing to an end its involvement in the search for MH370," the statement said.
"The search plan provides for the remaining search area to be completed using the other vessels."
As the search area begins to narrow without any further evidence of the missing Boeing 777 airliner, the JACC reiterated that search operations would be "suspended" but not abandoned if no new evidence is found in the given search zone.
"At a meeting of ministers from Malaysia, Australia and the People's Republic of China held on July 22 2016, it was agreed that should the aircraft not be located in the current search area, and in the absence of credible new evidence leading to the identification of a specific location of the aircraft, the search would be suspended upon completion of the 120,000 square kilometer search area," the statement said.
Ministers went to great lengths to explain that this does not mean the termination of the search; should credible new information emerge which can be used to identify the specific location of the aircraft, consideration will be given to determining next steps.
MH370 was a scheduled passenger flight from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing. It disappeared on March 8, 2014 with 239 passengers and crew on board.
