Photos: This is Bluefin-21, the mini sub searching for MH370
A mini-sub hunting for Malaysian jet MH370 prepared to make a second mission to the remote Indian Ocean seabed Tuesday after aborting its first search as it encountered water deeper than its operating limits, officials said. The unmanned submarine loaded with sonar to map the ocean floor deployed on Monday night from the Australian ship Ocean Shield which has spearheaded the hunt for the Boeing 777 that vanished on March 8. Here are some images of it in operation.
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In this Monday, April 14, 2014, photo provided by the Australian Defence Force, personnel prepare to deploy an autonomous underwater vehicle from the ADV Ocean Shield to search of the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in the southern Indian Ocean. The search area for the missing Malaysian jet proved too deep for the robotic submarine which was hauled back to the surface of the Indian Ocean less than half way through its first seabed hunt for wreckage and the all-important black boxes, authorities said on Tuesday. AP
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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 is currently being extracted and analysed: AP
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The US-made Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Bluefin-21 will now embark on a second mission during the day, weather permitting, Australia’s Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) said: AP photo
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The 4.93-metre long Bluefin device, which weighs 750 kilograms, needs two hours to reach the bottom, where it produces a high-resolution 3D map before surfacing in another two hours. Downloading and analysing data requires a further four hours: AP
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The Bluefin-21 is equipped with side-scanning sonar and will initially focus on 40 square kilometres (15 square miles) of seabed in the vicinity of the detected signals.: AP
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In this map provided on Tuesday, April 15, 2014, by the Joint Agency Coordination Centre details are presented in the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in the southern Indian Ocean: AP
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