Malaysians To Cover MH370 Missing Site In Indian Ocean

From Mohd Razman Abdullah PERTH (Australia), Oct 21 (Bernama) -- Two journalists from the Malaysian national television station, Radio Television Malaysia (RTM), will cover an underwater probe for missing flight MH370, at an isolated site in the Indian Ocean, 3,000 km off Perth. RTM's senior journalist Awaludin Abdul Ghani, 51, and cameraman Abdul Halim Mohd Yusof, 44, will board a Malaysian contracted vessel, GO Phoenix, which is equipped with sophisticated underwater detector vehicles called Prosas, to provide a 30-day news coverage. Deftech DRB-HICOM Defence Technologies Sdn Bhd, chief executive officer Defence and Aviation, Amril Samsudin said the 90-metre vessel would depart from Freemantle port, here on Oct 23 for the search operations. He told Bernama here Tuesday that Prosas, the sophisticated detector vehicles which are attached to the ship by tow cables, had been programmed to detect the biggest parts of the aircraft likely to be in one piece, such as engines and fuselage. The ship will join the search operations of Malaysia-Australia contracted ships, Fugro Discovery and Fugro Equator. Flight MH370, which was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members left the KL International Airport at 12.41am on March 8, and disappeared from radar about an hour later while over the South China Sea. It was to have arrived in Beijing at 6.30am on the same day. The Boeing 777 aircraft however has yet to be found, even after an exhaustive search in the southern Indian Ocean where it is believed to have gone down after veering off course. The search for the aircraft is ongoing, with no concrete evidence being found yet. Awaludin said he had volunteered to do the news coverage and a documentary report as he knew to report on the mysterious missing aircraft would be a 'once in a lifetime' opportunity for him. "It is a rare experience for me and I am excited to share the news with Malaysians," said the father-of-four. Abdul Halim, who has 20 years of experience as a videographer with RTM, said it was his first time to make a documentary film on high seas. "With high waves and a rocking vessel it will be an arduous task for me to capture historical pictures on Malaysia's effort to search for the missing plane. "Usually I am involved in sports news coverage. But I am ready for this," said the father-of-three. Both of them had worked out the programmes and activities during the search operation period as they needed to have something to do in a confined space with no land but only an expanded sea view. --BERNAMA