Australian authorities have resumed the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370 in the Indian Ocean after a four-month pause. From the New York Times:
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau said in a statement on Monday that one of the vessels involved, GO Phoenix, had arrived within the search zone in the southern Indian Ocean and was likely to stay 12 days before needing to refuel.
Two other ships — the Fugro Discovery and the Fugro Equator — will also join the search, which is concentrated along a long, thin arc that is thought to have been the plane’s flight path on March 8 before it disappeared.
The seabed being searched is up to 19,700 feet below the ocean’s surface at points, and per this Wall Street Journal article, the equipment being used to look for wreckage will be towed about 100 meters above the seabed. Investigators thus needed to spend several months mapping the ocean floor in the relevant area before beginning this phase of the search.
