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A stepped-up underwater search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 will start in about two weeks' time, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said yesterday as he visited Malaysia to discuss the issue.
Abbott said the hunt for the jet, which inexplicably veered off its Kuala Lumpur-Beijing route six months ago with 239 people on board, two-thirds of them from China, would continue for as long as necessary.
Australia has led the search for the Boeing 777 airliner, which is believed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean off its west coast. A massive air, sea and underwater search has not yet found any wreckage.
After talks with his Malaysian counterpart, Najib Razak, Abbott said the new phase of the search would begin "in about a fortnight's time".
The underwater search "will utilise the best available technology. It will last as long as it needs to scour the seabed," he said.

Experts have used technical data to narrow down MH370's most likely resting place deep under the Indian Ocean.
The new underwater search will focus on a dauntingly vast stretch of ocean measuring 60,000 square kilometres.
Najib's government and Malaysia Airlines were widely criticised for their response to MH370's disappearance.
Paying his first official visit to Malaysia, Abbott also discussed with Najib the fate of Malaysia Airlines flight 17, which exploded over eastern Ukraine in July.
The two leaders called for "justice" for the 298 people - among them 38 Australian citizens or residents and 43 Malaysians - who were killed in the disaster. The West has accused Russian-backed separatists of shooting down the plane, while Moscow blames Kiev.
Najib said intelligence reports on what happened to the plane were "pretty conclusive", but he did not elaborate.
Dutch air-crash investigators have announced that they will release a preliminary report on Tuesday into what brought down the airliner, another Boeing 777, which had been travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.
The Netherlands is leading the probe into the crash, in which 193 Dutch citizens were killed.
"What we need to do next is to assemble physical evidence that can be brought to court when the time comes so that it will be proven beyond any doubt that the plane was shot down," Najib said.
He added that investigators needed "at least a few weeks" - before winter set in - to search the MH17 crash site for human remains and to "assemble physical evidence".

The search has been suspended since early last month because of heavy fighting between Kiev's forces and rebels in the area, and although most human remains have been recovered, some are believed to still be at the site.
"Once that process is completed, we will look at the criminal side, who is responsible for this atrocious crime," Najib said.
The two prime ministers also met Malaysian personnel involved in the missions to find MH370 and to salvage wreckage and remains from the MH17 crash site.


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Malaysia Airlines flight 17

New MH370 search to start in two weeks, Australian PM says in Malaysia

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and his Australian counterpart Tony Abbott meet in Putrajaya yesterday. Photo: Reuters

Coffins with MH17 victims arrived in Kuala Lumpur earlier this week. Photo: EPA

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A stepped-up underwater search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 will start in about two weeks' time, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said as he visited Malaysia to discuss the issue.
