Despite random reports online that Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 may have been found, there still remains no firm evidence of the plane's whereabouts, and the search for the missing plane continues.

Five months into the search for the ill-fated Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370, and in efforts to continue to ramp up the search, the Royal Malaysian Navy has decided to send KD Mutiara to join search efforts in the Southern Indian Ocean.

KD Mutiara is a hydrographic vessel reportedly fully-equipped with sonar equipment capable of detecting objects up to 11,000 meters below the sea surface. The ship left the Malaysian Navy base in the state of Perak on Monday, August 4, 2014.

KD Mutiara is manned by 19 Royal Malaysian Navy officers and 118 other sailors. According to the Malaysian authorities, the navy vessel is also capable of measuring objects with distance of up to 7,000 meters from the surface.

Vice-Admiral Datuk Mohamad Roslan Ramli, Malaysian Navy fleet commander, announced that the navy vessel will be reporting to Australia's Military Coordination Sub Surface in Perth once it arrives in the Southern Indian Ocean, which the Malaysian Navy expects to be somewhere around the 18th of August.

According to the fleet commander, nearly fifty percent of the Southern Indian Ocean search area has been covered by the search operations so far. Roslan added that the search efforts would continue until the Malaysian plane is found.

KD Mutiara will be joining the Chinese Zhu Kezhen and the Australian Fugro Equator, both state-of-the-art survey ships.

Australia has taken over, as the lead for the search of the missing Malaysian plane since March, and together with China and other countries, has deployed numerous aerial and sea search teams across the Indian Ocean.