Over a year after the Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 went missing on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, along with 239 people on board, the intensive underwater search for the aircraft's debris is being scaled back because of deteriorating weather in the area.
The Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC), formed by the government to keep the public informed about the progress of the investigation into flight MH370, said in a statement that the vessel GO Phoenix would halt operations and return to Singapore after completing its current swing. Only two vessels: Fugro Discovery and Fugro Equator will stay put through the winter months in the expanded 120,000 square kilometer search zone, reported News.com.au.
The statement said that in the coming months, the search operation will be focused on the southern part of the search area in the Indian Ocean to take advantage of the last of the better weather before the onset of continuous poor weather during winter.
Till date, almost 60 million dollars have been spent, with Australia and Malaysia splitting the cost, to locate MH370 but no trace of the plane has been found so far.