MH370 search ship docks in Albany
A Chinese navy supply ship docked in Albany Port on Wednesday morning to refuel with 4.5 million litres of diesel, before heading back to search for the wreckage of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
People’s Liberation Army Navy ship Qian Dao Hu was loaded with 5500 tonnes of fuel and 70 pallets of food to service Chinese ships scouring the search area for the plane that has been missing since March 8.
The Boeing 777 disappeared en-route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing and all 239 crew and passengers are presumed dead.
Albany Port Authority chief executive Brad Williamson said few foreign war ships came to Albany.
“I’ve never had a Chinese navy ship in my time, very unusual,” he said.
“It’s nice to be able support the search effort.”
The 178.5m supply ship docked at Berth 2 and will leave Friday to return to the search.
The last port at which the Qian Dao Hu docked was Singapore and the ship also attended the Sydney International Fleet Review last year.
The People’s Liberation Army is the world’s largest military force.
The search is being co-ordinated from RAAF Base Pearce with US Navy underwater equipment — a pinger locator and Bluefin-21 autonomous underwater vehicle — in an attempt to find MH370’s black box flight recorder.
