4 May 2018

Search for MH370 uncovers 19th century shipwrecks

2:02 pm on 4 May 2018

The search for Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 has failed to find any sign of the missing plane, but it has uncovered two shipwrecks.

This sonar image was released by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau and shows a ship wreckage on the ocean bed.

This sonar image was released by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau and shows a ship wreckage on the ocean bed. Photo: AFP

The wrecks of what are believed to be two 19th century British coal ships have been found on the seabed of the Indian Ocean and were found about 35 kilometres apart at a depth of almost four kilometres, more than 2000km off Western Australia.

The vessels were detected in May and December of 2015 during a search of the Indian Ocean seabed for signs of the lost Boeing 777, which disappeared in March 2014 with 239 people on board.

Experts from the WA Museum were asked by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau to examine sonar and video data of the two wrecks - one of which had a wooden hull while the other was iron. It was likely they went down after some sort of catastrophic event such as an explosion.

But he said research into lost ships was incomplete, so determining the exact identity of the vessels themselves was difficult.

"However, we can narrow the possibilities to some prime candidates based on available information from predominantly British shipping sources," Dr Anderson said.

"For the wooden ship, the brig W. Gordon and the barque Magdala are two possible candidates.

"For the iron ship the barques Kooringa [1894], Lake Ontario [1897] and West Ridge [1883] are possible, with the West Ridge best fitting the evidence."

Early analysis of the site identified a large rectangular metal object about six metres long, which was initially referred to as a "mystery chest".

Dr Anderson said the object, which was the biggest feature found at the wreck site, had been identified as a water tank.

MH370 disappeared on 8 March 2014 while flying from Kuala Lumpur International Airport to Beijing Capital International Airport. The aircraft has not been recovered, and the cause of the disappearance is still unknown. There were 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board.

- ABC