Robot sub makes first complete search for plane
Source: AP-Excite
By MARGIE MASON
PERTH, Australia (AP) - A robotic submarine has completed its first full 16-hour mission scanning the floor of the Indian Ocean for wreckage of the missing Malaysian airliner after two previous missions were cut short by technical problems and deep water, authorities said on Thursday.
The Bluefin 21 had covered 90 square kilometers (35 square miles) of the silt-covered sea bed off the west Australian coast in its first three missions, the search coordination center said on Thursday. While data collected by the sub from its latest mission, which ended overnight, was still being analyzed, nothing of note had yet been discovered, the center said.
A total of 12 planes and 11 ships were to join what could be the final day of the surface ocean search for debris from the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777.
Thursday's search would cover a 40,300-square-kilometer (15,600-square-mile) patch of sea about 2,200 kilometers (1,400 miles) northwest of the Australian city of Perth, the center said.
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In a Monday, April 14, 2014 photo provided by the U.S. Navy, operators aboard the Australian defense vessel Ocean Shield move the U.S. Navy's Bluefin-21 autonomous underwater vehicle into position for deployment to search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. On Tuesday, April 15, 2014, the U.S. Navy and search coordinators said that a built-in safety feature aborted what was supposed to have been a 16-hour mission to create a sonar map of the ocean floor after only six hours. (AP Photo/U.S. Navy, MC1 Peter D. Blair)