An unmanned submarine was deployed to scour the seabed in the hope of locating debris and/or the all important black box data recorders.
So a specially designed machine can no longer function simply because of the sheer deepness of the ocean?
Just what must life be like down there in an environment described as among the most inhospitable on Earth?
How deep is the search area?
At an expected depth of 4,500m the sea floor in the area is deeper than where the Titanic now rests and where Air France flight 447, which crashed back in 2009, was eventually found.
How deep is 4,500m?
At over 14,000ft or 2.8 miles the seabed in the search area is extremely deep indeed.
To put it into perspective it is larger than the Eiffel Tower on top of the Statue of Liberty on top of Canary Wharf.
In fact if you stacked the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, on top of itself FIVE TIMES and inverted it, it wouldn't reach the sea bed.
What can you see?
Around a mile down the last trickle of sunlight begins to disappear.
As said the ocean floor in this particular part of the southern Indian Ocean is nearly three miles down.
Visibility is zero at such depths with artificial lights providing the only chance of seeing anything with the naked eye.
The Bluefin-21 submarine is a probe equipped with side-scan sonar - such technology uses acoustic sounds rather than light to create a picture of the sea floor.
After emitting a sound the submarine then waits to receive a response, before calculating the distance from those results.
What is the water pressure like at such depths?
With the sheer volume of water above the pressure at such depths is staggering.
Pressure in the ocean increases by approximately one atmosphere for every 10 metres of depth - meaning some deep sea areas can reach levels of above 1,000 atmospheres.
For perspective, imagine trying to breath with 4,400 pounds per square inch pushing down on your chest.
That level of pressure is so great it pushes the air out of Styrofoam, hence the pictures below.
Could a manned submarine go down and get the black box?
There are very few submarines in circulation that would be capable of descending to, and working at, a depth of as much as 4,500m.
Only a handful of countries own such craft too, such as the US, China, Japan and Russia.
What is the terrain at the bottom of the sea like?
The sea floor in general is like the terrain above ground, with peaks and troughs and mountains and valleys.
The bottom of the search area now being combed, while extremely deep, is not especially mountainous.
That said, despite the area being generally flat, experts have warned that the search will almost certainly be a long and painstaking process.
What else is down there?
Marine life at such depths is like nothing else on earth.
Life forms habitually are blind because with no light present there is no need to be able to see.
"The deeper you go you find less and less," marine biologist Paula Carlson told CNN.
"They have to be very cold tolerant, they might not even have eyes. They may be blind, because they don't need to see, there's no light down there."
How deep is it possible to go?
Back in 2012 film director James Cameron descended to the deepest part of the Mariana Trench, some 10,898 metres down.
Known as the Challenger Deep, the area is the deepest recorded point on Earth.
It was only the fourth ever dive to the bottom and only the second manned expedition.
Cameron's though was the first to spend any significant time at the bottom - three hours.
കാണാതായ മലേഷ്യന്‍ യാത്രാവിമാനത്തിനായി ഇന്ത്യന്‍
മഹാസമുദ്രത്തിന്റെ അടിത്തട്ടില്‍ നടത്തുന്ന തെരച്ചിലിനു ഭീമന്‍ തുക
വേണ്‌ടിവരുമെന്ന്‌ ഓസ്‌ട്രേലിയയും മലേഷ്യയും വ്യക്തമാക്കി.
അമേരിക്കയുടെ
ആളില്ലാ അന്തര്‍വാഹിനി ഉപയോഗിച്ചു നടത്തുന്ന തെരച്ചിലില്‍ ഉടനെങ്ങും
വിമാനാവശിഷ്ടങ്ങള്‍ കണെ്‌ടത്താനാകുമെന്ന്‌ തെരച്ചില്‍ സംഘത്തിനു പ്രതീക്ഷയില്ല.
മറ്റു മാര്‍ഗങ്ങളുപയോഗിച്ചു തെരച്ചില്‍ നടത്താന്‍ സ്വകാര്യകമ്പനികള്‍ക്കു കരാര്‍
നല്‌കുന്നതു പരിഗണനയിലുണെ്‌ടന്നും ഇതിനു കുറഞ്ഞത്‌ 234 ദശലക്ഷം ഡോളറെങ്കിലും
ചെലവാകുമെന്നും ഓസ്‌ട്രേലിയന്‍ ഉദ്യോഗസ്ഥര്‍ അഭിപ്രായപ്പെട്ടു.
നാലര
കിലോമീറ്റര്‍ ആഴത്തിലാണു തെരച്ചില്‍ നടത്തേണ്‌ടതെന്നും ഒരു പട്ടാളത്തിനും ഇതിനു
തക്ക ശേഷിയില്ലെന്നും മലേഷ്യന്‍ ഗതാഗത മന്ത്രി ഹിഷാമുദ്ദീന്‍ പറഞ്ഞു. തെരച്ചിലിനു
കരാറുകാരെ പരിഗണിക്കേണ്‌ടിവരുമെന്നും അദ്ദേഹം കൂട്ടിച്ചേര്‍ത്തു.
വിമാനത്തിന്റെ ബ്ലാക്‌ബോക്‌സിലേതെന്നു കരുതുന്ന സിഗ്നലുകള്‍ ലഭിച്ച
മേഖലയിലാണു തെരച്ചില്‍ കേന്ദ്രീകരിച്ചിരിക്കുന്നത്‌. ബ്ലാക്‌ബോക്‌സിന്റെ സ്ഥാനം
കൃത്യമായി നിര്‍ണയിക്കുന്നതിനു മുമ്പ്‌ സിഗ്നലുകള്‍ നിലച്ചതിനാല്‍ തെരച്ചില്‍
ഏറെനാള്‍ നീണേ്‌ടക്കും.
