Australian gov't announces that fourth vessel to join MH370 search in Indian Ocean

A new vessel has been brought in to help the international search for missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 -- after a 10-month operation has so far found no remains of the aircraft.

Acting Australian Prime Minister Warren Truss said on Tuesday that the Fugro Supporter was on its way to the West Australian coast to join three other vessels in the search, after it had recently completed trials in Bali.

Fugro Equator, Fugro Discovery and GO Phoenix have already been tasked with the job of searching for remains of the missing Boeing 777 which went down last March.

Speaking to the Australian Broadcasting Commission on Tuesday, Truss said the Fugro Supporter was expected to arrive in the search area in the southern Indian Ocean and join the operation in late January.

Truss insisted he was still confident the plane would be found, despite the time that has passed since the accident.

"It's a huge search area, it's in very deep water, it's a long way from the coast, but we're still optimistic that we're searching in the right place and we've got good enough equipment to be able to identify this wreck," he told ABC Radio.

When asked what would happen if MH370 was not located when this phase of the search wrapped up in May, Truss said there would have to be a new "round of assessments".

"We're putting in the best effort and if it's possible to find it, I'm confident we can do it," he said.

The latest vessel, to be be jointly funded by Australia and Malaysia, is equipped with a Kongsberg HUGIN 4500 autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV).

"The AUV will be used to scan those portions of the search area that cannot be searched effectively by the equipment on other vessels," Truss said.

As of last Wednesday, over 14,000 square kilometres of the sea floor has been searched, with about 208,000 square kilometres surveyed.

With no significant interruptions, search crews still hope to have completed their effort by May.

Flight MH370 left Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing last March when it disappeared, with 239 people on board, including six Australians.