Ocean search for Malaysian airliner finds
2nd shipwreck
The
undersea search for the Malaysian airliner that vanished almost two years ago
has found a likely 19th century shipwreck deep in the Indian Ocean off the west
Australian coast, officials said Wednesday
A sonar search for the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines
Flight 370 found what appeared to be a man-made object on Dec. 19, the
Australian Transport Safety Bureau said in a statement
The Shipwreck Galleries of the Western Australian Museum
conducted a preliminary review of the images and advised that the wreck was
likely to be a steel or iron ship dating from the turn of the 19th century, the
bureau said
The bureau on Thursday corrected the potential age of the
wreck to the middle of the 19th century or later
"It looks like a large iron or steel sailing ship
sitting upright and very intact dating from mid-to-late 19th, possibly early
20th century," museum maritime archaeologist Ross Anderson told the bureau
in a statement.
Anderson said he was not able identify the name of the
ship based on the image or say whether it had three or four masts, which would
narrow the possibilities. He estimated it was 80 meters (260 feet) long
"It is all but impossible to identify ships or their
country of manufacture/port of origin without being able to do more detailed
artefact studies, as so many have been lost over the years," Anderson
said
"Often the best clue is something like crockery that
may have visible the name of the shipping line or similar," he added
| 
