article_snippet: Roughly a week's sail from the coast of Western AustraliaWestern Australia, ships with specialists and equipment capable of searching depths that regularly exceed 4,000 meters (13,123 feet), work around the clock, methodically ticking off sections of sea floor.
article_snippet: In early February a new ship, the Fugro Supporter, joined the search carrying the HUGIN 4500, a programmable unmanned submarine, now scanning areas that other equipment couldn't safely cover, including steep mountain slopes.
article_snippet: a new ship, the Fugro Supporter joins the Discovery and Fugro Equator, both operated by a Dutch survey firm, along with the Malaysian-contracted GO Phoenix.
article_snippet: I asked specifically to come on this job, because it's a very exciting opportunity to do something that will potentially help a lot of people," James Hancock, a surveyor who usually works in the oil industry in the North Sea, told CNN's Anna Coren, as he prepared to embark on a trip on the Fugro Discovery that could last up to six weeks.
article_snippet: For now, teams are searching mostly using devices called towfish, which are dragged close to the ocean floor on cables up to 10 kilometers long.
article_snippet: A number of cyclones, producing waves of up to 16 meters, put the brakes on the search in early February.
article_snippet: One possibility is that the deep-sea search could be extended outside the boundaries of the current priority area, north or south along the 7th arc.