Hunt for missing Malaysian jet closes in on final resting place
Perth: The hunt for the missing Malaysian jet was on Thursday narrowed down drastically to a targeted patch in the Indian Ocean after fresh underwater signals possibly from the plane’s black box were picked up this week.
Australian ship Ocean Shield towing a pinger locater in the southern Indian Ocean on Tuesday reacquired two signals after earlier detecting two on Saturday.
All of the four “pings”, heard possibly from the black box of the ill-fated plane, have been recorded within approximately 27 kilometres of one another.
In another major development yesterday, Australian authorities analysed the signals picked up on Saturday and determined that they were not natural occurrences, but likely came from specific electronic equipment. Some marine life make similar sounds.
No more signals had been picked up overnight, the search coordination centre said today. The Ocean Shield continued its hunt towing the US navy pinger locater through the ocean’s depths.
The underwater search continued today, with Ocean Shield at the northern end of the defined search area, and Chinese ship Haixun 01 and HMS Echo at the southern end, hoping to find the signal again and get a more specific fix on its location.
Finding the black box is crucial for knowing what happened on March 8 when the Beijing-bound Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 flight MH370 with 239 people, including five Indians, disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
The batteries powering the black box are certified to be working for 30 days. Stored in a plane’s tail, they are designed to begin sending off distinct, high-pitched pings or signals as soon as they come in contact with water.
