The hunt for the crashed Flight MH370 is the most difficult in human history and there is no guarantee that it would be found, Australia said today as Malaysian Premier Najib Razak visited a military base here coordinating multinational search operations for the wreckage.
“We cannot be certain of ultimate success in the search for MH370,” Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said at a news briefing, standing alongside Najib.
“This is most probably the most difficult search ever undertaken ... but I can assure people that the best brains in the world are working on this,” he said.
“But we can be certain that we will spare no effort – that we will not rest – until we have done everything we humanly can.”
Najib, whose government has come under fire for their handling of the disaster, met search crews at Pearce RAAF base, before their planes left for today’s search in the southern Indian Ocean.
“I’m very confident we will indeed show what we can do together as a group of nations; that we want to find answers, that we want to provide comfort to the families and we will not rest until answers are indeed found,” Najib said.
Najib thanked Australia and officials involved in search operations of the missing Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 that mysteriously disappeared from radar screens on March 8 with 239 people, including five Indians, on board.
The two leaders were also updated on the search operations at the air base while meeting the personnel coordinating the search.
Former Defence Force head Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, who is coordinating the search, told the two leaders that the search zones are continually being moved.
“I want to assure you Australia is doing everything it can,” Houston, who is leading the new Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) for the search, told Najib.
“This is one of the most demanding and challenging search and rescue operations, or search and recovery operations, that I have ever seen and I think probably one of the most complex operations of its nature that the world has ever seen,” Houston told Najib and Abbott.
Up to eight planes and nine ships were involved in the today’s search for the missing plane.
Australian Maritime Safety Authority has determined a search area of about 223,000 square kilometres, 1680 kilometres west north-west of Perth.
A British submarine today joined the hunt for the missing plane and will try to detect pings from the aircraft’s black box, adding to a growing search contingent that includes the private jet of film director Peter Jackson.
HMS Tireless, a Trafalgar-class nuclear submarine, arrived in the search zone as Malaysian police warned the mystery of the plane’s disappearance may never be solved.
Family members of the 227 passengers have repeatedly accused the authorities of lying to them and holding back information.
Multiple sightings of possible debris have so far failed to turn up any sign of the aircraft, which investigators say - beyond reasonable doubt - went down in the Indian Ocean.