Will the new search for missing flight MH370 finally find the doomed plane?

Craig Wallace, from Deep Sea Vision, says finding the wreckage would be an emotional day for his mates on board the semi-robotic ship Armada that's been deployed into the Southern Indian Ocean. 

"There would be tears, it's one of the biggest aviation mysteries, if not the biggest," Wallace told 60 Minutes reporter Dimity Clancey.

"To bring closure to all those people, I think it's a great thing." 

The electrical engineer worked on the mapping systems being used in the latest expedition, led by marine robotics company Ocean Infinity.

"They are the best placed in the world just now to do this search," Wallace said.

"Nobody has got better resources or better people right now to conduct this search, and the best chance of success is with them." 

This latest search mission, about 1500 kilometres off the coast of Western Australia, relies on three underwater drones that are being rotated from the mothership.

They sink 6 kilometres down and scan the seafloor for up to 100 hours at a time.

The drones are controlled remotely, and when seabed anomalies are found, the machine is redeployed to capture sonar images.

"The first thing is trepidation because you see a potential target and you'll see so many targets that you'll be let down over and over and over again, you get quite emotional," Wallace said.

"It won't be until people get those camera images that we actually believe they found the wreckage.

"Once you've confirmed it's the wreckage, we then need to map out the debris field and that'll be done in several stages."

It's sophisticated technology former Australian naval officer Peter Waring wishes was around 11 years ago when he was on the frontline of the initial search after the plane went missing.

"What these new Ocean Infinity vessels represent, frankly, is as big a transition in maritime technology as the movement from sail to steam in the 1800s," Waring said.

But no matter how extraordinary this latest equipment is, there is one thing nobody can control: the Indian Ocean, where waves as high as 20 metres have been recorded.

"There's absolutely no shelter out there and there's nowhere to hide. You're six or seven days away from the nearest port, which is Perth," said Waring.

"These are dangerous conditions. If something goes wrong, it will turn catastrophic very, very quickly."

The latest expedition plans to scour 15,000 square kilometres of ocean floor based on data collected by a number of independent researchers over the past decade.

But bosses at Ocean Infinity remain circumspect.

They haven't explained why they picked this new search zone, prompting calls for greater transparency about the data being relied upon for the new search.

"I'd like to have seen all of the data that they're using to base this new search on should have been published," Waring said. 

"I think that's the level of transparency that we really should have had here."

Ocean Infinity has taken a gamble by starting the new search before finalising a "no find, no fee" contract with the Malaysian government.

Waring remains cautious of getting his hopes up, given this is now the third search for MH370 and Ocean Infinity's second attempt after it failed in 2018.

"This is a mystery that really tears at the fabric of reality, and maybe it'll stitch it back together again slightly."

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