Undersea drone used to find MH370

[PERTH] A US Navy underwater drone sent to search for a missing Malaysian jetliner on the floor of the Indian Ocean could take up to two months to scour a 600 square kilometre area where the plane is believed to have sunk, US search authorities said yesterday.

The prediction coincided with the end to the abbreviated first mission by the Bluefin-21 autonomous underwater vehicle six hours into what was meant to be a 16-hour operation on Monday after it exceeded its 4.5 km depth limit and was automatically returned to the surface.

The introduction of the undersea drone marks a new slower paced phase in the search for Malaysia Airlines MH370 which disappeared on March 8 and is presumed to have crashed thousands of kilometres off course with the loss of all 239 people on board.