After a four-month hiatus, the hunt resumed Oct. 4 with new, more sophisticated equipment including sonar, video cameras and jet fuel sensors aboard three ships that will spend up to a year in a desolate stretch of the sea, about 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles) west of Australia. Officials initially ruled out terrorism, but conspiracy theories have endured. [...] the wreckage is found and examined, it will be impossible to say for sure what happened to the plane. The plane was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when, according to Dutch air crash investigators, it was likely struck by multiple "high-energy objects" that some aviation experts say is consistent with a missile strike. [...] international teams seeking to retrieve remains and salvage evidence have had difficulty reaching the crash site due to clashes between Ukrainian government and Russian-backed separatist rebels.