South Korea has hired the seabed survey and ocean exploration company Ocean Infinity to help the government in its search for the wreckage of the ship Stellar Daisy, lost in late March 2017.
Operations on locating the vessel, which went down in the South Atlantic Ocean some 2,500 nautical miles east of Uruguay, are expected to commence in January 2019.
Ocean Infinity informed that it would deploy a fleet of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) simultaneously to search for Stellar Daisy. Upon locating the wreck there will be an extensive survey carried out using the latest 3D imaging technology, the company added.
“For the sake of all involved we sincerely hope that we can find Stellar Daisy and be able to collect as much evidence about its loss as we can. As always with deep sea search there can be no guarantee of success as neither the precise location nor the specific circumstances of its loss are known,” Oliver Plunkett, Ocean Infinity’s CEO, said.
The 266,100 dwt vessel sank on March 31 with 24 crew members on board, eight South Korean and sixteen Filipino sailors. Only two sailors were rescued following the incident. The remaining 22 crew members remain missing and are presumed dead.
At the time of the incident, Stellar Daisy was transporting iron ore from Brazil to China.