藍鰭 21將重啓370航班搜尋工作

A lone submersible will begin scanning the ocean floor for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in an area next to where it previously failed to find any sign of the jet, as nations involved discuss ways to broaden the search in coming weeks.

Reuters來自澳大利亞和其他國家的馬航370航班空中搜尋人員等待拍攝一張官方照片。參與馬來西亞航空(Malaysia Airlines, 簡稱：馬航) 370客機搜尋工作的各國正在討論未來幾周如何擴大搜尋範圍。與此同時一架潛航器將開始在新的海域進行水下搜尋，此前該潛水器對相鄰海域進行了搜尋，但未發現客機殘骸的任何跡象。

The Bluefin-21, an underwater drone provided by the U.S. Navy, will commence its 17th mission once weather conditions improve, the Australian authority leading the search off the coast of Western Australia said Wednesday. Previous sorties in a 314 square kilometer (120 square mile) zone where a U.S. Navy listening device earlier picked up signals consistent with locator beacons on the aircraft's 'black box' flight recorders failed to find any trace of the plane.

牽頭此次澳洲西部海域搜尋工作的澳大利亞當局週三稱，一旦天氣狀況改善，美國海軍提供的藍鰭-21 (Bluefin-21)水下無人潛航器就將展開第17次水下搜尋。早些時候美國海軍一偵聽設備疑似探測到客機“黑匣子”發出的位置信號，藍鰭-21隨即對附近314平方公里（120平方英里）的海域進行搜尋，但未找到飛機的任何跡象。

An Australian air force plane is on standby in the Western Australian city of Perth, while a number of other military vessels and aircraft will return to their national duties, Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Centre said. They include a Royal New Zealand Air Force P-3 Orion, which will return to New Zealand Thursday after completing 27 missions estimated to have cost the small nation about 1.2 million New Zealand dollars (US$1 million.) Two U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon aircraft flying missions in search of debris on the ocean surface, along with the Navy ship Cesar Chavez, have also left the multinational operation, the U.S. Navy said in a statement Wednesday.

相關報道專題：馬航飛機失聯澳大利亞聯合機構協調中心(Joint Agency Coordination Centre)稱，澳空軍一架飛機待命於澳洲西部城市珀斯，與此同時衆多其它海軍艦船及飛機將恢復爲本國服務的職責。這其中包括新西蘭皇家空軍(Royal New Zealand Air Force)的一架P-3“獵戶座”(Orion)，該巡邏機將在週四完成第27次任務（估計已花費120萬新西蘭元（約合100萬美元））後返回新西蘭。美國海軍週三在一份聲明中稱，美國兩架負責在海面搜尋客機殘骸的P-8波塞頓(Poseidon)巡邏機以及一艘“塞薩爾•查韋斯”(Cesar Chavez)艦船已不再參與多國搜救任務。

The hunt for the Boeing 777 jet moved from a perspective of days to one of months or maybe years earlier this week, as Australia gave up on finding wreckage in a narrow area of the southern Indian Ocean and said it would vastly expand the search area into deeper surrounding waters. The plane vanished from radar screens en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur on March 8. Investigators believe it diverted sharply from its original course and crashed into the Indian Ocean, far from any airport, when it ran out of fuel.

本週早些時候澳方放棄在南印度洋一片狹窄海域內找到客機殘骸的希望，並表示將搜尋區域大幅擴大至周邊更深的海域。3月8日這架波音(Boeing) 777客機在從吉隆坡飛往北京的途中從雷達屏上消失。調查人員相信該客機大幅偏離原定航線，並在耗盡航油後墜入南印度洋一片遠離任何機場的海域。

The search effort, now more than 50 days old, is set to move from sophisticated military hardware to one essentially led by private contractors with equipment that can scan trenches in the southern Indian Ocean thought to lie up to 7,000 meters below the sea surface. But it will take some time for commercial contracts to be agreed, and for new operators to reach the search area, hundreds of miles northwest of the Australian city of Perth.

搜索任務進行至今已有50多天，之後搜尋工作將從先進的軍用設備轉交給私人承包商來負責，這些承包商的設備可對南印度洋海面最深至七千米以下的海溝進行搜尋。相關商業合同的達成和新工作人員的部署到位都需要一些時間。搜尋海域位於珀斯西北數百英里的位置。