Robotic submarine to search for Malaysian jet

Search crews hunting for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet have now decided to deploy a mini-submarine in the Indian Ocean to try to locate the plane’s wreckage.

The submersible Bluefin-21 will now be sent down to hunt for the source of pings detected earlier. It is the same device that was used to find the Air France plane that crashed in the Atlantic Ocean back in 2009.

Angus Houston, the head of the Australian-led search operation, said crews will launch the unmanned underwater vehicle on Monday.

This comes as over the past six days, no new signal has been received that could be from the plane’s black boxes.

“We haven’t had a single detection in six days, so I guess it’s time to go under water,” Houston said, adding, “I would caution you against raising hopes that the deployment of the autonomous underwater vehicle will result in the detection of the aircraft wreckage — it may not.”

Meanwhile, an oil slick has been spotted in the search area. But its source is yet to be determined.

The Malaysian aircraft disappeared five weeks ago on a flight en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board.

Flight MH370 with 239 passengers and crew vanished from radar screens early on March 8 — less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur on a scheduled flight to Beijing. At least 150 Chinese citizens were on board the missing plane.

No debris from the plane has been found yet. There is growing frustration among the family members of the missing passengers as search operations drag on.