HONOLULU, April 2 ― British submarine HMS Tireless has joined the search in the southern Indian Ocean for the Malaysia Airlines plane which vanished early last month.
Malaysian Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein said this was confirmed by his British counterpart Philip Hammond in a telephone conversation yesterday morning. Hawaii is 18 hours behind Malaysia.
“This is a contribution from a friend of Malaysia that is much appreciated by not only us but also our other Flight MH370 search operation partners,” he told Bernama here.
Hishammuddin arrived here Monday evening to attend the United States-Asean Defence Forum convened by United States Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel.
The Beijing-bound Malaysian Boeing 777 with 239 passengers and crew on board mysteriously disappeared on March 8 while flying over the South China Sea, about one hour after taking off from the Kuala Lumpur International airport at 12.41 am.
Observers said it signalled the United Kingdom's continued support to the multinational attempt to locate the missing aircraft.
Its sophisticated underwater listening equipment will be used to attempt to detect the underwater locator beacon of the aircraft's flight recorders.
Malaysian Navy deputy chief Vice Admiral Datuk Seri Panglima Ahmad Kamarulzaman Ahmad Badaruddin noted that the HMS Tireless, a Trafalgar-class nuclear submarine, was able to operate in the harshest maritime environment, including like that in the South Pole.
Additionally, the UK has redeployed HMS Echo to assist in the search.
“I sincerely hope that everyone will pray that all the assets that we have will be able to identify objects spotted by satellites in the hunt for Flight MH370,” Hishammuddin said.
A multinational search was mounted for the aircraft, first in the South China Sea and then, after it was learned that the plane had veered off course, along two corridors ― the northern corridor stretching from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to northern Thailand and the southern corridor, from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.
Following an unprecedented type of analysis of satellite data, United Kingdom satellite telecommunications company Inmarsat and the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) concluded that Flight MH370 flew along the southern corridor and that its last position was in the middle of the Indian Ocean, west of Perth, Australia.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak then announced on March 24, seventeen days after the disappearance of the plane, that Flight MH370 “ended in the southern Indian Ocean”. The search continues there. ― Bernama
