(Thurs Update) MH370: More signals narrow the search zone
(Thursday) Two more signals have been detected from what could be the missing MH370 aircraft allowing search teams to narrow their search zone.
(Thursday) Two more signals have been detected from what could be the missing MH370 aircraft allowing search teams to narrow their search zone.
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This handout photo taken on April 7, 2014 and released on April 9, 2014 by Australian Defence shows HMAS Perth refuelled by HMAS Success at sea while searching for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean. AFP PHOTO/AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE/ABIS NICOLAS GONZALEZ
Thursday update
Hunt for black box signals zeroes in on 'final resting place'
PERTH, Australia, AFP – The hunt for more black box "pings" from missing Malaysian airliner MH370 was narrowing Thursday to a specific patch of remote ocean after two more signals were detected.
The head of the Australian-led search Angus Houston raised hopes Wednesday that wreckage will be found within days even as the black box batteries start to expire.
Houston's Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) announced Thursday the search area off western Australia was now 57,923 square kilometres – some 20,000 square kilometres down on Wednesday.
But Australian ship Ocean Shield is focused on an area of the Indian Ocean 2,280 kilometres northwest of Perth where it picked up two fresh signals Tuesday to match a pair of transmissions logged over the weekend as searchers try to pinpoint the exact crash zone.
No debris from the Boeing 777 which disappeared on March 8 has yet been found.
Officials had feared that the signals which were initially picked up might not be detected again, particularly since the batteries on the black box tracking beacons have a normal lifespan of about 30 days.
"Yesterday's signals will assist in better defining a reduced and much more manageable search area on the ocean floor," Houston told a press conference.
"I believe we are searching in the right area but we need to visually identify the aircraft before we can confirm with certainty that this is the final resting place of MH370."
Tuesday's stories
A handout photo taken on April 4, 2014, and released on April 5 by Australian Defence shows the towed pinger locator on the deck of Australian Defence Vessel Ocean Shield in the first search for the missing flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean. AFP
MH370 searchers detect 'promising' acoustic lead
PERTH, Australia, AFP – An Australian navy ship has detected new underwater signals consistent with aircraft "black boxes", the chief of the MH370 search said Monday, calling it the "most promising lead" yet in the month-old hunt for the missing plane.
Retired Australian defence force chief Angus Houston said the acoustics emanating from deep down in the Indian Ocean showed that the multinational search by ships and planes seemed to be "very close to where we need to be".
The apparent breakthrough comes as the clock ticks past the 30-day lifespan of the emergency beacons of the two data recorders from the Malaysia Airlines jet, which vanished March 8 with 239 people on board en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
The Australian defence vessel Ocean Shield is using a "Towed Pinger Locator" lent by the US Navy. The Australian vessel and Britain's HMS Echo had been scouring separate ends of a 240-kilometre track, converging on each other, when it detected the acoustic noise.
The ships must operate at a significantly reduced speed to plumb depths of three thousand metres or more.
Angus Houston, head of the Joint Agency Coordination Centre leading the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, displays a graphic of the search area during a media conference in Perth on April 7, 2014. AFP PHOTO / Greg WOOD
"The towed pinger locator deployed from the Ocean Shield has detected signals consistent with those emitted from aircraft black boxes," Houston told a press conference.
He said more information is needed but called the findings of the past 24 hours "very encouraging".
One signal lasted for two hours and 20 minutes, the second for 13 minutes.
"On this (second) occasion two distinct ping returns were audible," Houston said, adding that was consistent with transmissions from both the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder, which have separate beacons.
Commander William Marks of the US Seventh Fleet said one of the signals strengthened for a time, then weakened, indicating crews were near its source.
"That is encouraging because that is what you would expect if you are indeed moving toward the black box – that it should get stronger and as you move away from it, it should get weaker," he told AFP.
Marks said if "conclusive evidence" can be drawn after re-acquiring the signals, a US-made submersible sonar device called the Bluefin-21 would be deployed to scan the seabed.
"So it is encouraging, but once again a long way to go, and it could be days, it could be weeks, it could be months," he said.
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