A Candidate Site for MH370 That Can Be Searched Quickly and Soon

by Victor Iannello Posted: Tuesday, 3/10/2026

For a number of years, Ed Anderson has independently used hydrophone acoustic evidence in an attempt to localize the point of impact of MH370. He has detected an acoustic event that occurred along the 7th arc at a time that is consistent with a large portion of the airframe impacting the seabed. Although it is impossible to definitively relate this acoustic event to MH370, and although his candidate site is further north along the 7th arc than most investigators using other methods think is likely, his mathematical analysis localizing the acoustic event has not been challenged.

Recently, Ocean Infinity (OI) and Malaysia announced that the search centered around the “IG Hotspot” (as defined in UGIB 2020 as 34.23S, 93.78E) is indefinitely paused due to unfavorable seasonal weather in the Southern Indian Ocean (SIO) and due to OI’s other commercial engagements. Ed notes that his candidate site at 8.36S, 107.92E is only 42 miles off the coast of Java, Indonesia, in relatively calm tropical waters, and could be searched before Ocean Infinity’s exclusive contract with Malaysia is terminated in June. Unlike other analytical methods that attempt to reconstruct the flight path and imprecisely predict the impact site, Ed’s method localizes the acoustic event to a fairly small area that could be efficiently searched. That’s my recommendation.

Here’s Ed’s letter:

An open response to ending the current search for MH370 due to weather

March 9, 2026 by Ed Anderson

It is sad that Ocean Infinity has now concluded the current search for MH370. I believe that OI has until June before the $70M contract runs out, and there are still viable candidate sites along the 7th Arc.

My acoustic candidate site off the coast of Java is in relatively calm tropical waters, 42 miles off the coast of Java, at 8.36S 107.92E directly on the 7th Arc. When the Armada vessels go through the Sunda Straight, they pass just 200 miles from the 7th Arc site. The epicenter is very specific, likely accurate to within 2-3 km. A single Hugin AUV could search the broader area in an afternoon.  Here is some background detail since this has never been covered by the news media.

The site is indeed over 800 miles from any previous aerial/surface/seabed searches, yet it is an exact match for the SATCOM BTO values and a good fit for all other hard evidence. That may seem impossible, but those previous searches were based on a fundamental assumption that MH370 made no turns shortly after leaving radar, even though it clearly was navigating between waypoints for the previous hour. The assumption is understandable, because optimizing for a single path that best matches the satcom BTO/BFO doesn’t work with additional turns. It opens up too many possibilities without new evidence.

The acoustic evidence is now quite clear. Hydrophones were analyzed by Curtin University in 2014 with two papers published as appendices h and i to the Oct 2018 ATSB Final Report. The first report p 21 accurately detected the bearing to the Java event on the Diego Garcia HA08 array, but it was unfortunately dismissed as a “small earthquake in the Java Trench”. Their focus was on a different signal arriving Cape Leeuwin on bearing 301.6 that crossed the 7th Arc toward the Maldives. That intersection was the northernmost extent of the 2018 OI search. The second Curtin report utilized the IMOS Scott Reef hydrophone, focused on a strong signal arrival in an attempt at triangulation with the 301.6 event. In fact, the signal is instead an exact match for the Java event.

There was no quake cataloged for the 01:15:18Z Java event on the 7th Arc, but it is detectable by at least 40 regional seismometers using public data. The first anomalous aspect is that the HA08 hydrophone signal arrival at 01:59:20Z from Java is one of the strongest of the day. It is at least 10x stronger than strong cataloged Magnitude 4-5 quakes arriving from the Java trench. Another oddity is that all previous quakes over the last century near the Java site have been deep in the subduction zone typically 30-90 km deep. The candidate epicenter is at seabed depth. There was some early confusion on my part over the timing, thinking that the event was due to an underwater implosion of sinking debris as sought by the CTBTO, Curtin, ATSB, and others. The epicenter timing turns out to be much simpler, and matches well with the seabed impact of a large section of sinking MH370. The timing is 56 minutes after the last 00:19:37Z 7th Arc ping, which implies that the large section stayed afloat for over half an hour. A weaker arrival of a signal similar to the Java event in a narrow 1.2 Hz band is just 6 minutes after the last ping. That would be consistent with the core of an engine sinking to the 3400 m depth at the site.

All other active hydrophones in the SIO picked up the Java event. The timing is slightly shifted because the sound entered the 1000 m deep SOFAR propagation channel by reflection off the Java coastline. This is similar to the way the missing ARA San Juan submarine was located off the coast of Brazil. The Cape Leeuwin HA01 hydrophone is mostly blocked from the event by the Australian coastal shelf, but it still picked it up. The other IMOS hydrophone at Perth was not recording at the time, as it samples for 5 minutes out of every 15. Seven French hydrophones near Amsterdam Island were analyzed in an unpublished 22 Dec, 2016, University of Brest report LDO-201608. Six detected the event but it was again classified as an earthquake. A geological survey vessel near Exmouth also detected the Java event at the correct bearing using a huge towed grid of over 6,000 hydrophones, but no surface impact.

Experts in ocean acoustics know that remote surface and seabed events do not typically propagate into the SOFAR channel. The travel outward in rings of convergence separated by broad shadow zones. Only when they encounter terrain that intersects the SOFAR channel can it enter by reflection. The “301.6” event detected by Curtin has timing roughly consistent with the Java event symmetrically reflected off the mid-ocean 90 East Ridge.

There is no dispute that a loud event took place. Any seismologist can verify the event and perhaps improve the epicenter calculation with better tools. The only MH370 expert objections have been about how the sound was generated and whether it can be associated with MH370 vs geological. The odds of an unassociated anomalous seabed event taking place directly on the 7th Arc just as MH370 would have been sinking are difficult to calculate, as there is nothing for comparison.

One low and slow flyable waypoint path to the site is suggested that matches BTO exactly, but there would be others also optimized for BFO. The selected path is at oxygen altitude near holding speed and coincides with seismic infrasound doppler detections of possible flybys at Cocos Keeling and Christmas Island airports matching the ping arc timings.

The Java candidate site has no dependence on the cause of the comms outage, early flight events, motivations of the pilot, or any conspiracies. One speculation is that an impaired plane was unable to safely land but could continue to fly toward daylight as the crew dealt with the damage. This could explain why the SATCOM was partially restored an hour after it was lost.

Drift studies are most dependent on the travel time of the first two pieces of debris found, the flaperon at Reunion Island, and “Roy” in South Africa which also traveled the farthest. Both had barnacles, unlike most of the debris found. 2025 photo analysis of the flaperon shows the barnacles are growing on top of abrasions from beaching. This shifts the previously assumed arrival earlier by about two months. That also matches the studied barnacle growth temperatures with the Austral winter sea surface temps near La Reunion at the time.

Some experts have expressed hope that the Java site would eventually be searched, and it has been added to the CAPTIO-N search map.

OI, Malaysia, and the ATSB are aware of the Java candidate site but until there is media coverage, it may go unsearched.

Now 12 years on, thoughts are with the NOK, and hope that MH370 can be found to bring closure for us all.

More detailed technical reports are at: 370Location.org.

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The Search for MH370 Continues into 2026

by Victor Iannello Posted: Thursday, 1/1/2026

On December 30, 2025, Ocean Infinity (OI) begin its third campaign to find MH370 on the seabed in the Southern Indian Ocean (SIO). The search vessel is Armada 8605, which is equipped with a team of three Hugin Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs). This search continues in the general area that was started in March 2025 using the vessel Armada 7806.

The map above shows how this campaign relates to previous efforts, including:

Original area searched by the ATSB. This part of the 7th arc was searched by GO Phoenix ship using a towed vehicle (“towfish”) with synthetic aperture sonar (SAS) starting in October 2014 and completing its mission in June 2015.

Area searched by OI in 2018. In early 2018, OI expanded the area searched previously by the ATSB. The area was extended outwards to around 59 km (32 NM) from the 7th arc and inwards to around 46 km (25 NM) from the 7th arc, and along the 7th arc between 36S latitude to 24.7S latitude. After searching around 120,000 square kilometers, which matched the total area covered previously by the ATSB, the MH370 debris field was not found.

UGIB Last Estimated Position. In March 2020, an extensive data-driven study was released by Ulich, Godfrey, Iannello, and Banks (UGIB 2020) which reconstructed the path of MH370 based on data sets and information from satellite, radar, aircraft performance, navigation systems, drift analysis, aerial search results, and archived weather. Assuming no pilot inputs after 19:41z, the study predicted that MH370 crossed the 7th arc around 34.23S, 93.78E, designated the Last Estimated Position (LEP). In June 2023, Ulich and Iannello subsequently incorporated results from an updated drift model that was used to refine the search area recommendation, including the possibility of a 70-NM glide after fuel exhaustion.

High Priority Search Area. In February 2023, Iannello recommended a search area that should be prioritized. Located on a steep slope about 33 km due south of the LEP and 27 km from the 7th arc, the area was not scanned by GO Phoenix’s towfish and appeared to have been only partially scanned by Ocean Infinity’s AUVs during the first campaign in 2018.

OI Proposed Search Area. At the 10th anniversary of the disappearance in March 2024, OI announced its intention to conduct another search for MH370. The area proposed by OI at that time centered approximately around the specific location (34.23S, 93.78E) from UGIB 2020, designated on OI’s map as the “IG Hot Spot”.

Track of Armada 7806. This track can be used to estimate the areas searched during the OI campaign that began in March 2025. Although the exact area scanned by the AUVs is not known, Armada 7806’s path to launch and recover the AUVs gives us a good idea of the area covered. The search area includes the UGIB LEP, the High Priority Search Zone, areas where data quality from previous searches was poor due to rough terrain or equipment malfunctions, and other unsearched areas within the OI Proposed Search Area.

Likely Progression Armada 8605. The current search seems to be methodically progressing to complete the areas within the OI Proposed Search Area that were not searched in March 2025. The search began on December 30, 2025, with unsearched parts of the proposed area (red rectangle) that is outwards (southeast) of the 7th arc. This area would include an unsearched area due south of the UGIB LEP and the High Priority Search area. These locations (the LEP and High Priority Search Areas) were based on a reconstructed flight path that was determined to statistically favor due south, so unsearched areas further along the due south trajectory is of high interest and will be reached soon by Armada 8605 and its AUVs.

Acknowledgement. This article has benefited from the many private discussions with Mike Exner, Don Thompson, Bobby Ulich, and Andrew Banks.

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Next Search for MH370 to Begin in Late December?

by Victor Iannello Posted: Thursday, 11/6/2025
HUGIN AUV used to search for MH370. Source: Kongsberg Maritime

Contributed by Don Thompson

We now have confirmation that Ocean Infinity’s Armada 86-05 has been mobilised with the equipment necessary to conduct a renewed search for the wreckage of MH370. Armada 86-05 is docked at a marine engineering facility in Singapore with three containerised AUV ‘garages’ fastened over the vessel’s stern with other, minor, necessary features evident.

Recently, Carl A. Allen’s Allen Exploration/AllenX team publicised that an Ocean Infinity Armada 86 vessel would join their maritime wreck survey planned under the auspices of the National Museum of the Philippine’s Maritime and Underwater Cultural Heritage unit.

This AllenX survey is to explore the San Bernardino Strait for WWII and Spanish colonial era wrecks. The Strait separates Luzon and Samar islands. Considering the allotted duration, it’s expected that the survey will be exploratory, perhaps identifying and mapping potential wreck sites for later investigation. One of the AllenX vessels is also docked in Singapore.

The Philippines archipelago is experiencing late season typhoons, while typhoon Kalmaegi has passed through, south of the strait, a second building storm in the Pacific may add delay to this project.

While speculation has been voiced in other quarters that an MH370 search mission will have ROVs and or offshore recovery cranes to hand, that is unlikely. Very unlikely. The Hugin AUVs may be tasked to revisit potential targets, acquiring higher resolution side-scan sonar imagery and, if necessary, acquire visible spectrum images using the AUVs digital camera. Planning for any physical recovery will come later, as it becomes evident what might be achieved.

The wider Armada fleet is now engaged on projects throughout north Atlantic sea areas: A78-01 in the UK North Sea; A78-02 in the Gulf area, south of Louisiana; A78-03 in the German Bight; A78-04 has returned to Vard, Norway; A78-05 & -08 with A86-01 & -03 working off Portugal on a survey for three offshore floating wind generating sites; A78-06 in the Netherlands North Sea; A78-07 in the Stabroek block, off Guyana. Only A78-07 is conducting operations with AUVs at this time: two vessels are conducting ROV operations using deep water/heavy duty ROVs; the remaining are engaged in geotechnical and geophysical operations. 

Armada 86-02 is en-route to Vancouver while A86-04 and A86-06 remain at the Vard jetty in Vung Tau undergoing trials and completion. Two other ‘legacy’ construction support vessels in the wider OI group fleet are engaged on long term projects. In contrast to some other offshore operators, it’s impressive that Ocean Infinity’s vessels are now seeing such high utilisation. 

Considering the AllenX project, sIO weather prospects and repositioning time, I expect the soonest Armada 86-05 might get to the sIO is likely to be late December.

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Update on the Search for MH370

by Victor Iannello Posted: Monday, 3/31/2025
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Last year, in March 2024, at a gathering in Malaysia on the 10th anniversary of the disappearance of MH370, family member V.P.R. Nathan presented several slides highlighting Ocean Infinity’s willingness to conduct another subsea search for the debris field of the aircraft. The search area proposed at that time extended along the 7th arc from about 33°S to 36°S, and out to about 45 NM (83 km) on either side of the arc. Ocean Infinity also announced plans to “fill-in” areas that were previously searched that had low quality or missing data due to equipment failures or challenging terrain. The proposed search area surrounded the “Last Estimated Position” (LEP) from UGIB 2020, which was designated the “IG Hotspot” in the slide. The proposed search area also incorporated our High Priority Search Area due south of the LEP that was missed by the previous searches by the ATSB and Ocean Infinity due to the steep sloping terrain in that area.

More recently, there were the following developments:

  • On December 20, 2024, the Malaysian government agreed “in principle” to a new search effort with Ocean Infinity, indicating the start of formal negotiations.
  • On March 19, 2025, Malaysia’s Transport Minister Anthony Loke announced that the Malaysian cabinet had agreed to the terms and conditions of the agreement with Ocean Infinity under a “no find, no fee” arrangement, with a payment of $70 million if successful.
  • On March 26, 2025, a group representing the families of MH370 victims announced that a no-find, no-fee contract was signed by Malaysia and Ocean Infinity. Despite this announcement, there has been no official confirmation from either Malaysia or Ocean Infinity.

In February 2025, with no signed contract in hand, Ocean Infinity began the search that was proposed the year before. After completing two phases of the subsea search, Armada 7806 and its team of three AUVs is now on course to Singapore. Prior to departing for Singapore, the activities conducted during the two phases can be summarized as follows:

Phase 1: After arriving in the search area after departing Mauritius, this phase of the search began on February 23 and was completed on February 28, before departing to Fremantle to reprovision and resupply. The areas searched during this phase (dotted black box in the figure above) were primarily areas previously searched by the ATSB and by Ocean Infinity. Consistent with Ocean Infinity’s proposal from March 2024, the Phase I activities focused on infilling data where challenging terrain such as steep slopes previously resulted in missing or low quality data (data holidays). As such, most of the area in the Phase 1 box was not re-searched. The areas searched in this phase included our “High Priority Search Area”.

Phase 2: After departing Fremantle, Armada 7806 began searching again on March 11 and continued until March 28, before departing for Singapore. The areas searched during this phase (dashed black box in the figure above) were never searched before, starting further southwest and wider than the area proposed by Ocean Infinity in March 2024 (red boxes in the figure above). This would suggest that Ocean Infinity intends to enlarge the search area from what was previously disclosed.

The reasons for Ocean Infinity concluding this part of the search appear to be related to worsening seasonal weather and also related to prior contractual commitments for Armada 7806.

An interesting event occurred during the return to the search area before the start of Phase 2. The course of Armada 7806 was originally towards a part of the area that was searched in Phase 1. Then, on March 10, there was a change in course towards the southwest to begin searching areas not previously covered.

If there was no change in course on March 10, the purple dotted line in the figure above shows where in the Phase 1 search area Armada 7806 would have reached. In fact, our prior article discussed the possibility that Armada 7806 was returning to a debris field that was detected during Phase 1. This area is shown in more detail in the figure below.

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Shown in the figure by the black oval is an area that was possibly searched in both Phase 1 and Phase 2, which might mean a promising area required further investigation. However, as we don’t know the exact path that the AUVs followed after launching, there may have been little to no overlap between the Phase 1 and Phase 2 search areas.

So why did Armada 7806’s course change on March 10? Here are two possibilities:

  1. What resembled a debris field was found during Phase 1 and the plan was to revisit that area during Phase II to collect more data. Due to ongoing contract negotiations, OI strategically opted to not disclose the location of the debris field, and the course changed to the southwest. Some additional data in the area of the debris field might have been collected at the end of the Phase 2. (See the potential overlap area in the figure above.) If the debris field was already found, it is unknown whether Ocean Infinity has met the requirements to earn the fee of $70 million, which may require the retrieval of one or more parts of MH370.
  2. No semblance of a debris field was found during Phase 1. Originally the plan was to begin the Phase 2 search where Armada 7806 originally headed and then progressively search to the southwest. For some reason, the plan was changed on March 10 to begin the search to the southwest and progressively search to the northeast, ending where originally planned to begin.

In any event, if the debris field was not found, we are hopeful that Ocean Infinity will return to the search area in November, later this year.

Acknowledgement: This article benefited from ongoing discussions with Mike Exner, Don Thompson, Bobby Ulich, and Andrew Banks.

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Is Armada 7806 Returning to the MH370 Debris Field?

by Victor Iannello Posted: Sunday, 3/9/2025

After a day in port in Fremantle, Australia, to refuel and resupply, Armada 7806 is headed back to the MH370 search area. Based on an average speed of around 10 knots, it should reach there around 02:30 UTC on March 11.

There is a sign that this phase of the search will be shorter than expected: Armada 7806 is self-reporting through Automatic Identification System (AIS) marine tracking that its destination is Cape Town, South Africa. As this is considerably further from the search area than Fremantle, it would make no sense to travel to Cape Town and then return to the search area. A leg to Cape Town would also limit the time that Armada 7806 could spend in the search area, as the port-to-port time is typically less than four weeks.

So why might Armada 7806 be returning to Cape Town after visiting the search area. I offer three possibilities:

  1. During the last phase, something resembling a debris field was detected. If so, Armada 7806 might travel to this spot, launch one or more AUVs, and get better data, including possibly images. After a short time gathering this data, it might travel to Cape Town before it is reassigned a new mission. Another vessel with ROV capability would then be assigned to better document the debris field and perhaps recover some wreckage.
  2. There are ongoing contractual issues between OI and Malaysia and the search will be cut short even if no debris field is detected.
  3. The AIS destination is not correct, either due to an error or due to misdirection.

With the recent announcement by Malaysia saying that the search contract with Ocean Infinity is approved and the signing is imminent, it reduces the probability of (2). Once the contract is signed, we can almost completely eliminate this possibility.

If (3) is correct, we would expect that Armada 7806 would remain in the area for a number of weeks to collect more data and then return to Fremantle. If (1) is correct, the time in the search area will be short. So the length of time that Armada 7806 remains in the search area will tell us a lot.

It is difficult to assign relative probabilities to these three scenarios. Perhaps it is confirmation bias that I believe that (1) is most probable. In any event, we’ll know more in the coming days.

Steep Slope

We can zoom into where Armada 7806 is headed to see why this area might be interesting. Presently (and this could change), Armada 7806’s course is towards a steep slope that was searched with AUVs during the last phase of this search. This steep slope also lies within the areas scanned previously by GO Phoenix using a towfish during the ATSB-managed part of the previous search effort. Parts of this slope were also previously scanned by Ocean Infinity with the vessel Seabed Constructor and its team of seven AUVs. A return to this area once again highlights the difficulty in scanning terrain with steep slopes and other uneven topography, even with AUVs.

The part of the steep slope that seems to be the target is part of the same slope that we designated the High Priority Search Area (HPSA), but further south along that slope. At the time we identified the HPSA, we were not aware that so much more of the slope was not adequately scanned during OI’s last search. If the debris field is truly along this slope, our recommendation to fill-in the low quality data near the 7th arc before extending outwards from the arc was accurate. We said:

As the a) final BFO values, b) the lack of IFE log-on, and c) the end-of-flight simulations all suggest an impact close to the 7th arc, a high priority should be to scan the areas closest to the 7th arc that were either never scanned or have low quality data before searching new areas further from the 7th arc. However, with pilot inputs, it is possible that MH370 glided after fuel exhaustion beyond the areas that were previously scanned. Therefore, searching wider along the 7th arc should also be part of the search plan if areas closer to the 7th arc are unsuccessful in locating the debris field...A steep slope to the south of where UGIB predicts MH370 crossed the 7th arc happens to lie along the extended path of the reconstructed route, and much of this slope remains unscanned. For this reason, the unscanned area surrounding S34.52 E93.84 should be designated a High Priority Search Area.

Although we are speculating about what might take place next based on very limited information, the next several days could prove to be very interesting.

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New MH370 Search Continues

by Victor Iannello Posted: Tuesday, 3/4/2025

Ocean Infinity (OI) has completed the first phase of its subsea search for MH370 in the Southern Indian along the 7th arc in the Southern Indian Ocean (SIO). As expected, Armada 7806, with its fleet of three autonomous vehicles (AUVs), is searching in the vicinity of the area proposed by OI in March 2024, generally between 34S to 35S latitudes. Armada 7806 is currently in port at Fremantle for refueling and resupplying. It is expected that the turnaround will take around a day, and that Armada 7806 will return to the 7th arc for the second phase of the search.

We know approximately what areas were searched based on the position of Armada 7806 as deduced by AIS reports transmitted via satellite and made available to the public via various marine tracking sites. However, the exact locations searched depend on the track followed by the AUVs after they are launched from the ship during their “sorties”, and this is unknown. Because launches and recoveries while the Armada 7806 is moving slowly or stopped, some additional information can be gleaned by the ship speed.

The figure below shows more details of the search area. Shown in the figure is the sonar data from the first search managed by the ATSB as contracted to Fugro and GO Phoenix (mixed brown shading), the outline (yellow) of the previous search conducted by OI using Seabed Constructor and its team of seven AUVs, and the outline (red) of new areas that OI proposed to search in March 2024. The tracks of Armada 7806 are shown by the circles and connected lines (purple), where the circles are representative of hourly position reports. Where the circles are clumped is indicative of either a launch or recovery of an AUV, which gives us some insight as to the areas searched.

The first location searched was the area we previously designated as the High Priority Search Area, which lies due south of where MH370 was estimated to have crossed the 7th arc, as presented in UGIB 2020. This lies at the border of where OI conducted its previous search. Other areas searched by Armada 7806 were either previously searched by the ATSB or OI. In some cases, Armada 7806 is searching in an area previously searched by BOTH the ATSB and OI.

The reason for re-searching these areas is apparent from the figure below, which includes the terrain features from bathymetry data and shows the spots in which the ATSB sonar data is poor quality, ambiguous, or missing (so-called “data holidays”), depicted as olive-green areas with white outlines. It is apparent that the search so far has focused on “filling in” the areas missed by previous searches, in particular where the terrain was challenging due to steep slopes. Although the AUVs have better ability to follow terrain contours in comparison to the towfish vehicles used by the vessels contracted by the ATSB, the steepest of slopes also present challenges to the AUVs.

Discussion

The search strategy to date is to progressively eliminate large areas that have the highest probability of finding the MH370 debris field. In our opinion, it makes sense to completely eliminate the areas closest to the 7th arc before proceeding outward from the 7th arc into areas not previously searched. The final BFO values at 00:19:29 and 00:19:37 suggest that at these times, MH370 was in a progressively steep descent of around 0.7g downward acceleration. It is possible that the pilot recovered from this dive and glided further from the 7th arc. After infilling the previous data, the search will likely continue into the new areas proposed by OI, which would at least partially consider the dive-glide scenario. Progressively eliminating large areas of seabed is more sensible than jumping between hotspots. Even the High Priority Search Area we recommended only represents an area that we believe has higher relative probability than other areas, but cannot considered to be a “high probability” area because of the many assumptions that were required to reconstruct the UGIB 2020 path.

Finally, we consider the search recommendation presented in Ulich and Iannello (2023), which included the provision for searching outward from the 7th arc to account for a 70-NM glide. This is shown by the black racetrack below, and includes most of the area proposed by OI to search. This would extend past the 15,000 km2 represented by the search area OI proposed in March 2024 (red outline). It would also include the search area recommended by Blely-Marchand, which surrounds 35.6°S, 93.1°E.

It is unclear whether OI will search other areas if the search in this area is unsuccessful.

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Vessel Details for the 2025 Search for MH370

by Victor Iannello Posted: Tuesday, 1/28/2025

Content researched and created by Don Thompson

Armada 78-06. Credit: Wei-Lin Chen, @taiwanshipswatchers

Ocean Infinity previously conducted a search for MH370 in 2018 using a fleet of Kongsberg Hugin 6000 Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (Hugin AUVs). The AUVs were operated from Seabed Constructor, a vessel designed to support subsea construction activity. Seabed Constructor’s roster of equipment was impressive, a truly multi-purpose subsea vessel: eight Hugin AUVs, acoustic comms and positioning system, two 5000-6000m depth rated (tethered) ROVs, autonomous surface vessels, and a crane able to lift from 3000m deep.

In early 2021 Seabed Constructor’s lease was terminated, along with Normand Frontier, as Ocean Infinity prepared to introduce its fleet of Armada 78 vessels.

The Armada 78 vessels, at 78m length, are smaller than Seabed Constructor. The fleet comprises four distinct operating configurations, none of which involve permanent AUV mobilisation.  However, in the context of an MH370 search mission, an Armada 78 can operate Hugin AUVs deployed in a self-contained ISO 668 form factor hangar/garage.

Container module for deploying Hugin AUVs. Image credit: H Henriksen

As of mid-January 2025, four Armada 78 vessels are operating in European waters, one has been operating out of San Diego, California, while three underwent further completions work in Singapore following the experience of those vessels operated in Europe.

While not permanently mobilised to operate AUVs, some Armada 78 vessels have been configured to deploy AUVs: Armada 78-07, from San Diego, to the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, Pacific Ocean; Armada 78-05, surveying pipeline/connector routes in the North Sea and Norwegian Sea; and, Armada 78-06, to the Ryukyu Trench, east of Taiwan, operating out of Kaohsiung port.

Recently, through December 2024-January 2025, much discussion has ensued, speculating on which of the three vessels based in Singapore may be a candidate to conduct a renewed search for MH370 in 2025. One commentator even asserted that Armada 78-08 had been designated as the vessel to conduct the search. Through December 2024 and January 2025 Armada 78-04, 78-06, and 78-08 separately departed Singapore.

Armada 78-04 departed 14th December 2024 fully configured for geotechnical operations with its CPT and vibrocore machines in place and without AUVs. In this configuration, it was not a candidate to conduct the search. After departure from Singapore, Armada 78-04 passed through the Sunda Straits, crossed the Indian Ocean and proceeded to the Atlantic with enroute replenishment and bunkering stops at Port Louis, Mauritius, and Cape Town, South Africa.

Armada 78-06 departed for a task in deep waters east of Taiwan. At departure, it was mobilised with two containerised AUV garages on the aft deck. Upon its return to Singapore, the vessel moored at the ST Engineering facility before departing again on January 19, 2025, and broadcasting Mauritius as its destination. Armada 78-06 passed through the Sunda Straits before establishing a course across the Indian Ocean for Mauritius.

Armada 78-08 had departed for Cape Town with a replenishment and bunkering stop at Port Louis, Mauritius. The vessel is mobilised to operate two Saab Seaeye Leopard ROVs using a LARS over the forward moonpool. These ROVs do not have the ability to operate at the depths found in the MH370 search area. No containerised AUV garages were deployed on the vessel at departure from Singapore.

Following a brief stop in Cape Town, Armada 78-08 departed, this time eastbound to the small port of Mossel Bay where a containerised AUV garage was waiting on the quayside to be loaded onto the vessel. The curious folk of Mossel Bay recorded, on social media, the missing piece of the puzzle to complete the picture of vessel preparation for the MH370 search: Armada 78-08 is ferrying a third AUV to Port Louis where it will be transferred to Armada 78-06 and transit will begin to the search area.

We suspect that delivery of the third container AUV garage was delayed in transshipment to A78-08 at Cape Town. By repositioning Armada 78-08 to Mossel Bay while the intermodal container was delivered by road to the port, any overall delay to the schedule was minimised. Armada 78-08 and 78-06 should arrive at Port Louis within a short time of each other.

While the period required to fully mobilise the additional, third, containerised AUV garage on Armada 78-06 is unknown to us, an estimation of sailing time Mauritius to 7th arc search area is approximately 10 days. Assuming a rendezvous of Armada 78-06 and Armada 78-08 around February 5, and assuming a week to outfit and resupply Armada 78-06, the search might begin around February 22, and perhaps sooner if the time to outfit and re-supply Armada 78-06 occurs faster than one week.

[VI comment: Here are some additional remarks to refute claims that are circulating.]

First, there is no evidence that Malaysia will not sign a contract with OI to search again. Yes, the negotiations seem to be taking longer than any of us would like, and yes, this might reduce the duration of the search compared to the last search, but considering only 15,000 km2 of area is proposed, the shorter duration of the search might not matter. The claim that Malaysia is not interested in searching again is at best premature, and most likely it is false.

Second, there is much speculation about the trajectory of Armada 78-08, which some believe is the vessel designated for the search. More likely, that is not the selected vessel for the search. As Don deduces in the article above, Armada 78-06 is more suitably designed and outfitted for the search.

Thirdly, there is no reason to believe that the search area will be very much different than what OI proposed in March of last year (2024), as shown at the top of the prior post. That area is largely consistent with the Zone 2 search recommendation proposed in Ulich and Iannello (2023). We also hope that OI will have the willingness and capability to search the steep slope at around 33 km (18 NM) due south of our best estimate of where MH370 crossed the 7th arc. This area, centered around S34.53° E93.84°, was not previously searched by either the ATSB or OI, and remains a high priority despite the challenging terrain, as discussed in this previous post.

So, although there are still many unknowns regarding the search, including the precise start date, I still believe it is likely that a search contract will be signed and the search will proceed without many surprises.

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Ocean Infinity Proposes New Search for MH370

by Victor Iannello Posted: Tuesday, 3/5/2024

On Sunday, MH370 family member V.P.R. Nathan presented several slides highlighting Ocean Infinity’s willingness to conduct another subsea search for the debris field of the aircraft. The search area, which may be refined later, extends along the 7th arc from about 33°S to 36°S, and out to about 45 NM (83 km) on either side of the arc. Ocean Infinity also plans to “fill-in” areas that were previously searched that had low quality or missing data due to equipment failures or challenging terrain.

The proposal is broadly consistent with the flight reconstruction and recommended search area that we presented in UGIB 2020 and the subsequent drift study. In fact, the “Last Estimated Position” (LEP) presented in those studies is designated the “IG Hotspot” in the slide. The proposed search area will also incorporate our high priority area due south of the LEP that was missed by the previous searches by the ATSB and Ocean Infinity due to the steeply sloping terrain in that area.

So, will Malaysia accept Ocean Infinity’s offer to conduct another search with the proposed terms of “no-find, no-fee”? At Sunday’s event, Transport Minister Anthony Loke expressed an interest in discussing the new proposal with Ocean Infinity. However, both he and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim cautioned that a new search would be conducted only if there was “credible new evidence”. So, although we may be seeing progress towards a new search, it is unclear whether or not Malaysia will accept Ocean Infinity’s proposal.

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Man-Made Objects Detected on Seabed Are Possibly from MH370 – Updated

by Victor Iannello Posted: Thursday, 11/2/2023
A shipwreck found during the subsea search for MH370

The total subsea search for MH370 comprised more than 240,000 km2 of seabed in the Southern Indian Ocean (SIO) along the 7th arc, which is derived from the metadata from the last transmission from MH370’s SATCOM terminal. The search of the first 120,000 km2 was managed by the Australian Transport and Safety Bureau (ATSB), and included the areas that Australia’s Defense Science and Technology Group (DSTG) deemed most likely as the Point of Impact (POI). The ATSB’s subsea search along the 7th arc extended in latitude from 39.4 S to 32.8 S, varying in width from 130 km at the southern end of the search area to 40 km at the northern end.

An additional 120,000 square kilometers of seabed was scanned by Ocean Infinity (OI) using a fleet of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). OI extended the length and width of the ATSB’s search so that a full 110 km width was scanned along the 7th arc north to a latitude 31.5 S. The search area was then narrowed to a width of 84 km and extended north along the 7th arc to a latitude of 24.8 S.

Despite this unprecedented large search in the area deemed most likely to find the debris field, the search was unsuccessful. So why wasn’t MH370’s debris field identified? There are only three realistic possibilities:

  1. The aircraft was manually piloted after fuel exhaustion and glided beyond the area that was previous searched. Although the final BFO values suggest an increasingly high rate of descent that would certainly have resulted in an impact within kilometers of the 7th arc if there had been no further pilot inputs, there is a possibility that the pilot arrested the steep descent and transitioned into a long, efficient glide.
  2. The point of impact (POI) occurred along the 7th arc further south than 39.4 S or further north than 24.8 S. For instance, although the statistical match to the satellite and drift model data is not as strong, Ed Anderson has discovered an acoustical event along the 7th arc at 8.4 S that he believes is related to MH370. Meanwhile, Paul Smithson believes an impact further south than 39.4 S is within the uncertainty limits of the fuel consumption and drift models, and should not be excluded.
  3. The debris field lies on the seabed within the area already searched, but was not identified due to challenging terrain, low quality data, or equipment issues.

Here we address the third possibility. In particular, we again consider whether the debris field might be located in the high probability search area previously identified, which is in proximity of the last estimated position (LEP) calculated in the UGIB 2020 study. We further consider whether parts of MH370 were detected but were never fully investigated because they were not part of a larger debris field.

In the figure below, the two inner yellow lines show the approximate limits of the area searched by the vessel GO Phoenix (under contract with the ATSB), and the outer lines show the limits of the Ocean Infinity search area. Also shown in the figure are olive-green areas which represent areas that were not scanned by GO Phoenix’s towfish due to steep terrain. The outlines of these and other areas of missing or low-quality data were made available by Geoscience Australia.

There is a steep slope to the south of the LEP, and the portion of the steep slope that was not scanned by the GO Phoenix towfish is about 60.3 km2. Of this, about half was later scanned by Ocean Infinity AUVs, leaving about 30.5 km2 of seabed surrounding S34.53° E93.84° that was never scanned. We designated this area as a “High Priority Search Area”, and it may be here that the debris field lies.

The subsea search for aircraft wreckage that many deem most similar to the search for MH370 was the search for Air France 447 (AF447), which was an Airbus A330 that crashed off the coast of Brazil in June 2009 in around 3000 m (9,800 ft) of water. Floating remnants of the aircraft were found within 2 days of the crash, but the subsea search was not successful in locating the debris field until April 2011, about 2 years after the crash. The sonar image from the debris field, which measured around 200 m x 600 m, is shown below.

AF447 is believed to have impacted the ocean surface without breaking up in flight and with a nose-up attitude. As such, the debris field that AF447 generated may be significantly different from the debris field created by the impact of MH370, as the final two BFO values suggest a high downward acceleration of 0.7g, and descent rates greater than 15,000 fpm. Without pilot intervention, MH370 possibly entered the water at a descent angle greater than 45 deg and at an airspeed approaching or exceeding Mach 1.

The debris from MH370 may more closely resemble the debris from SilkAir 185 rather than the debris from AF447. SilkAir 185 was a Boeing 737 that crashed into the Musi River near Palembang, Sumatra, Indonesia in December 1997. The aircraft experienced a rapid, nearly vertical dive that the US NTSB attributed to control inputs from the captain. During the high speed descent, parts of the control surfaces, including a large portion of the tail section, separated from the fuselage due to the high aerodynamic forces from the high speeds. The airspeed of the fuselage before impact is believed to have exceeded Mach 1.

SilkAir 185’s debris was found in two areas: the main debris field of around 60 m x 80 m at the bottom of the Musi River, which was only 8 m (26 ft) deep; and other larger debris, mainly flight control parts that separated before impact, that were widely scattered on land no closer than 700 m (2,300 ft) from the main debris field. According to the accident report, due to the high energy of the impact, the parts recovered from the river were “highly fragmented and mangled on impact” which made identification difficult.

If MH370 experienced the rapid descent suggested by the final BFO values, then it is probable that the fuselage broke apart before impact, and also probable that many large parts would be found outside of the main debris field. The flaperon recovered on Reunion Island is a good example of a flight control part that may have separated before impact. We would also expect the main debris field to be smaller in extent than for AF447, and within that debris field, the debris to be smaller and more difficult to identify. For instance, for the case of SilkAir 185, the landing gear was identified only by its subcomponents (struts, landing gear door actuators, wheels, brakes, tire pieces, etc.). This counters conventional wisdom that says that aircraft engines and landing gear should be among the easiest parts to identify by sonar on the seafloor, as it was the case for AF447.

The subsea search for MH370 was focused on finding the main debris field at the expense of identifying other parts that may have separated. For the search phase conducted by GO Phoenix, reports were written for a total of 45 “contacts” (observable features in images) that merited a further review. All the contact reports are compiled here. Of these 45 contacts, 24 contacts were within 100 km of the LEP, 10 contacts were within 50 km of the LEP, and 4 contacts were less than 25 km from the LEP. The locations of the contacts are shown in the figure below.

Of the 45 contacts, 11 (GP-002, 016, 018, 019, 021, 025, 026, 028, 030, 031, 047) were described in the reports with phrases like possibly “man-made”, “not geological”, or “not of natural origin”, and one (GP-046) was considered for further investigation with an AUV, which seems to have never been done. Of course, many of the man-made objects on the seafloor could be marine debris from sea vessels unrelated to MH370.

Andy Sherrill is an experienced ocean engineer who has conducted deep water search and salvage operations for a number of missions. He was a key member of the team that reviewed the sonar data for the subsea searches for MH370 that were conducted by the ATSB and Ocean Infinity. Andy was also part of team that identified the debris field for AF447 off the coast of Brazil as well as part of the team that found Argentina’s ARA San Juan submarine. Andy graciously offered these comments as to why many of the MH370 promising contacts were never investigated further:

“Typically, if there were small isolated objects that appeared to be man-made and marked as a target, but nothing else was of interest within several kilometers then we did not investigate further.

We certainly took into account if the debris field did not look like AF447 or any others, however there still needed to be enough debris to be at least a fair amount of the aircraft to warrant further investigation.

Sure a small part of the plane could have drifted and sunk, but we were looking for the main field. A decision was made to focus on finding the main field of debris, not just one small piece – and likely all of those “potentially man made” contacts are from passing vessels given there was no associated debris within several kms.

Having said that, there is always a chance it [a tagged contact] could be from MH370, but based on our assessment the time it took to investigate each of these small contacts was not worth taking vs searching new areas.”

Discussion

As the final BFO values, the lack of IFE log-on, and the end-of-flight simulations all suggest a high speed impact close to the 7th arc, a high priority should be to completely scan the areas closest to the 7th arc. MH370’s debris field may be smaller in area, consist of smaller parts, and be much more difficult to identify than searchers were anticipating. It’s also possible that the debris field is located in an area that was not fully searched due to challenging terrain, low quality data, or equipment issues, such as the steep slope identified above as the high priority search area due south of the LEP. As such, the investigation of many of the contacts previously identified becomes more important, as one or more of these contacts could be parts of MH370 that separated before impact. It’s also possible that one or more contacts are part of a less conspicuous debris field.

We again acknowledge that with pilot inputs, it is possible that MH370 glided after fuel exhaustion beyond the areas that were previously scanned. Therefore, searching wider along the 7th arc should also be part of the search plan if pursuing areas close to the 7th arc is unsuccessful in locating any of MH370’s wreckage.

Update on Nov 3, 2023

Andy Sherrill offered these additional comments:

“We did get rerun over GP16, and collected some higher frequency AUV SSS on that one. Looks highly likely to be geologic in my opinion.

We did not reacquire any more data over GP46, however that one looks very similar to GP16 and I would still classify it as highly likely to be geologic.”

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Improved Drift Model and Search Recommendations for MH370

by Victor Iannello Posted: Monday, 6/12/2023
Recommended Search Areas Surrounding 34.23°S, 93.79°S

After three years of work, Bobby Ulich and I are publishing a very detailed drift model for predicting the point of impact of MH370. The most likely point of impact (POI) is estimated to be along the 7th arc at 34.0°S latitude, which is around 76 km (41 NM) northeast of the last estimated position (LEP) of 34.23°S, 93.79°E from our previous study (UGIB 2020). While the current study primarily uses drift modeling, the previous study primarily used satellite, weather, and aircraft performance data. The consistency of these two studies lends support to the results. Because of uncertainties in the drift model, the present study estimates that it is possible that debris drifted from an origin along the 7th arc between 30°S and 36°S.

The study incorporates the following data sets, assumptions, and methodologies:

  • Seventeen reliable MH370 debris reports with unique locations and finding dates
  • 86,400 drift trials predicted by CSIRO using the BRAN2015 ocean model for the flaperon and for generic debris
  • Windage for generic MH370 debris varied over a range
  • A Bayesian statistic for the localization error of BRAN2015 drift tracks
  • Errors in the BRAN2015 ocean current and wind speeds
  • Minimum and maximum reporting delays of recovered debris based on barnacle encrustation
  • Maximum likelihood estimation theory
  • Processing methods for computing a PDF and estimating its uncertainty
  • Bayesian statistics for accommodating a large range of allowable transport speed of debris
  • Validation studies through non-blind, partially blind, and blind tests

The figure above shows the subsea search recommendations from the current study. The search area is subdivided into the following zones, in order of search priority:

Zone 1: Shown as the white rectangle, the area was largely searched before, but some areas were missed due to missing or low-quality data, including areas with challenging terrain. We also consider that one or more contacts previously dismissed may be individual parts from MH370 rather than the expected field of debris. Within Zone 1 is Zone 1A, shown by the red racetrack, which defines the limits of an impact before 00:21:07, which is when a log-in to the Inflight Entertainment (IFE) server was expected. Zone 1B is the part of Zone 1 that is not within Zone 1A.

Zone 2: Shown as the purple racetrack, this area extends to +/- 70 NM from the 7th Arc, and represents the likely limits to a glide after fuel exhaustion.

Zone 3: Shown as the large green racetrack, this area extends to +/- 140 NM from the 7th arc, and represents the extreme limits of a long glide after fuel exhaustion.

CSIRO shared with us two sets of 86,400 predicted trial drifter tracks using the ocean model BRAN2015. Each trial was assumed to have originated at a unique location near Arc 7, in an array with a fairly uniform areal density and within 25 km of Arc 7 between 8°S and 44°S latitude. The location (latitude, longitude) of each trial drifter was predicted by CSIRO at one-day intervals up to 1,027 days after crash. One set of 86,400 trials used the drift parameters CSIRO determined for the flaperon by sea trials with a cut-down flaperon. The other set was for non-flaperon debris and assumed 1.2% windage to account for Stoke’s Drift, which is shown in this video for all 86,400 trials:

Representative drift paths from our estimated point of impact (POI) to the 17 debris locations used in the analysis is shown in the following figure:


The paper “Improved Prediction of MH370 Crash Location Based on Drift Modeling of Floating Debris” by Bobby Ulich, Ph.D. and Victor Iannello, Sc.D., can be downloaded here.

Acknowledgement

I’d like to personally show my gratitude to Bobby Ulich, who has made this drift study a priority for three years, and was the driving force for its completion. We also gratefully acknowledge the many valuable contributions of David Griffin and by CSIRO, who made this work possible. In addition, we thank Don Thompson, Michael Exner, and Henrik Rydberg for reviewing an earlier version of the paper.

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