A ship involved with the deep-sea sonar search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is being fitted with a drone to examine several sonar contacts of interest on the remote seabed west of Australia. None of the sonar contacts exhibit the characteristics of a typical aircraft debris field, said the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is heading the hunt for the Boeing 777 in a stretch of the Indian Ocean. But some of the contacts exhibit man-made properties and must be investigated before they can be eliminated as not being from the plane, the agency said in a statement. Officials have previously said more than 20 sonar contacts crews have picked up in recent months require closer examination by a sonar-equipped underwater drone. They are 1,200 to 1,700 miles from the Australian port of Fremantle where the search ships are based. Poor weather during the southern hemisphere winter has until now prevented the ships from deploying the drone. With the weather improving, the Chinese vessel Dong Hai Jiu 101 is being fitted with a video camera-equipped remotely operated vehicle that will scrutinise the sonar contacts. Crews have picked up hundreds of sonar contacts of interest throughout the two-year hunt. They are grouped into three classification levels based on their likelihood of being linked to the plane. None of the recent sonar contacts are classification 1, seen as most likely to have come from the aircraft. There have only been two contacts that fit into that category; one turned out to be an old shipwreck, and the other was a rock field. Search crews have so far come up empty in their attempt to find the main underwater wreckage of the plane, which vanished on March 8 2014, during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board. The ships have less than 3,900 square miles left to scour of the 46,000 square mile search zone. Officials previously said the search would be finished by December. On Wednesday, the transport bureau said it is now likely to take until January or February, due to the long stretch of poor winter weather that has hampered search efforts. Malaysia, China and Australia agreed in July that the hunt would be suspended after crews finish scouring the current search zone, unless credible new evidence emerges. AP
A drone has been deployed to locate the remains of AP 777 , which vanished on 8 March 2014 . Over 20 sonar contacts have been identified for analysis by the underwater drone, at locations ranging from the 46,000 square mile from the Chinese port of Australia . Having previously been unable to install the drone due to poor weather, officials have said the search should be completed by December .