Malaysia Airlines MH370: mini-sub 'Bluefin' search aborted after first launch

Submarine hunting for Malaysian jet MH370 forced to abort its first search of the remote Indian Ocean seabed because water was deeper than its operating limits

The Bluefin-21 Autonomous Underwater Vehicle completed its first deep sea search in the southern Indian Ocean for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 on Monday evening, but had to abort its mission after six hours because the water depth exceeded its operating limits.

The Australian Joint Coordination Centre released a statement saying: "After completing around six hours of its mission, Bluefin-21 exceeded its operating depth limit of 4,500 metres and its built in safety feature returned it to the surface.

The six hours of data gathered by the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle is currently being extracted and analysed.

The Bluefin-21 will be launched again from the Australian ship Ocean Shield for another day of searching on Tuesday, if weather permits said the search co-ordination centre.

Source: US Seventh Fleet

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