CHENNAI:The state of the art Multifunctional Support Vessel (MSV) ‘Olympic Canyon’ with integrated Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) provided by Reliance group has commenced the visual profiling of 1.5 nautical miles, the area from where the Indian Coast Guard Dornier aircraft along with three crew members went off the radar on the night of June 8.
Inspector General SP Sharma, Commander,Indian Coast Guard (East), said the ROV would give a consolidated update after scanning the area.He said Indian Navy submarine INS Sindhudhwaj, deployed again after the departure of RV Sagar Nidhi, did triangulate a source transmitting in Band II ( 8-40 Khz) in the area.“This was passed on to Olympic Canyon,” said Sharma, adding that ROV has an advantage over the NIOT vessel as it would videograph the underwater stretch. “Sagar Nidhi was equipped with multi-beam echo sounder, a device typically used by hydrographic surveyors to determine the depth of water and the nature of the seabed besides sub-bottom profiler, designed to look below the seabed at structural geology and sedimentation patterns. But it never provided us with any visuals,” said Sharma.