Robotic sub to hunt for missing Malaysian jet

Searchers hunting for the crashed Malaysian jet today said they will deploy a robotic underwater drone for the first time to locate the plane’s ‘final resting place’ in the Indian Ocean at a depth of 4,500 metres after failing to detect any signals from the black boxes in a week.

‘Ocean Shield will cease searching with the towed pinger locater later today and deploy the autonomous underwater vehicle Bluefin-21 as soon as possible,’ Australian chief search coordinator Angus Houston said. ‘We haven’t had a single detection in six days so I guess it’s time to go underwater,’ he told a news conference.

In another significant development in the search, Houston said two litres of the newly spotted oil slick had been collected for testing. ‘I stress the source of the oil is yet to be determined but the oil slick is approximately 5,500 metres downwind...from the vicinity of the detections picked up by the towed pinger locater on Ocean Shield,’ he said.

Houston said he did not think the oil slicks were from one of the many ships involved in the search but it would take a number of days before the oil could be 

conclusively tested.