美国有线新闻 CNN MH370搜寻工作重启 美国私人勘探公司将接手

 

AZUZ: Up next, a restart in the search for a missing passenger jet in the Indian Ocean. Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 vanished on March 8, 2014. It was flying from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing, China, with 239 people on board. But it suddenly changed course during its trip and headed toward the Southern Indian Ocean. Some pieces of the plane have washed up in Tanzania, an island east of the African continent.

But despite an underwater search that lasted almost three years after the plane's disappearance¹, the governments of Australia, China, and Malaysia suspended their search operations last January. They never found out what happened to the plane, but there's new hope that the mystery will one day be solved.

MATT RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: With the official government-led search into what happened to MH-370 ended about a year ago now, but now, this U.S.-based private company called Ocean Infinity² says it will pick up where those governments left off.

The official search went over an area of 120,000 square kilometers. That was at the time where investigators³ believed this plane would be most likely to be. But at the end of that search, investigators also pointed⁴ to a 25,000 square kilometer area nearby, they said that could also be an area where this plane could be found.

That smaller area is where Ocean Infinity says it will be focusing its search. And it says that it has the technology to do so. It said it's different than what the governments used. It said that they had these things called autonomous⁵ underwater vehicles. That means that they're underwater vehicles that are not tethered to ships on the surface. Because of that, the company says that they can go deeper, collect higher quality data and it makes their technology ideal for this search.

The search terms, the deal that they struck with the Malaysian government, this will be a 90-day search, only about three months to search this 25,000 square kilometer area and it's on "no find, no fee" deal. Meaning that if the company doesn't find the plane, then they're not going to get paid by the Malaysian government. They're taking on the economic risks, at least to start.

And while the whole world is interested in what happened to this plane, what caused it to disappear, the people who are most interested in finding out what happened would, of course, be the family members of this 230-plus people who disappeared when the plane itself disappeared. We reached out to some of those family members who live here in Beijing earlier and the general theme was that they are happy that the search is continuing, but they say there's been a lack of transparency in this process going back years. And despite this latest development, they're not really expecting anything to change.

Matt Rivers, CNN, Beijing.

1 disappearance   

n.消失，消散，失踪

参考例句：

• He was hard put to it to explain her disappearance.他难以说明她为什么不见了。
• Her disappearance gave rise to the wildest rumours.她失踪一事引起了各种流言蜚语。

2 infinity   

n.无限，无穷，大量

参考例句：

• It is impossible to count up to infinity.不可能数到无穷大。
• Theoretically,a line can extend into infinity.从理论上来说直线可以无限地延伸。

3 investigators   

n.调查者，审查者( investigator的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• This memo could be the smoking gun that investigators have been looking for. 这份备忘录可能是调查人员一直在寻找的证据。
• The team consisted of six investigators and two secretaries. 这个团队由六个调查人员和两个秘书组成。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

5 autonomous   

adj.自治的；独立的

参考例句：

• They proudly declared themselves part of a new autonomous province.他们自豪地宣布成为新自治省的一部分。
• This is a matter that comes within the jurisdiction of the autonomous region.这件事是属于自治区权限以内的事务。