Australian-led search for missing MH370 jet suffers another setback

The Australian-led quest to find downed Malaysia Airlines passenger plane MH370 has suffered another setback, with the search ship's tethered sonar vehicle breaking loose at the weekend.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau released a statement from the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) on Monday confirming Fugro Discovery's sonar vehicle towfish broke free of the vessel on Sunday while searching the Southern Indian Ocean.

"The towfish collided with a mud volcano, which rises 2,200 meters from the seafloor, resulting in the vehicle's tow cable breaking," an official press release from the JACC, an organization set up to keep the public informed on the search, read.

"The towfish and 4,500 metres of cable became separated from the vessel and (both) are now resting on the sea floor."

The JCCC said they would be able to recover both the towfish and its cable at a later date. In the meantime, however, Fugro Discovery will have to postpone its search, returning to the Western Australian city of Fremantle to replace the remote equipment.

The ship is expected to make port on Jan. 30, according to the agency.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014, en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur with 239 passengers and crew on board.

A flaperon from MH370 that washed up on Reunion Island, near the African nation of Madagascar, in May has been the only identified piece of wreckage discovered after almost two years of searching.

No trace of MH370 has been found during the Australian-led expedition, which has scoured 80,000 square kilometers of seafloor outside of Perth.

Australia is expected to wrap up its search effort by mid-2016, once its 120,000-square-kilometer target area has been analyzed. Endit