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A fast response craft from Australian Defence Vessel Ocean Shield tows Able Seaman Clearance Diver Michael Arnold (left) as he searches for debris in the search zone for the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, in the southern Indian Ocean. – Reuters pic, April 9, 2014.After a pause of two days, Australian navy ship Ocean Shield has again picked up two more signals in the southern Indian Ocean, believed to be from the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
Angus Houston, who heads the Joint Agency Coordination Centre overseeing the search, said one ping was detected at 4.27pm (Perth time) on Tuesday afternoon and lasted five minutes, 25 seconds, while a second was picked up at 10.17 pm the same day, lasting seven minutes.
"I believe we are searching in the right area but we need to visually identify wreckage before we can confirm with certainty that this is the final resting place of MH370," said Houston at a press conference today.
Houston, according to an AFP report, said he hoped to find the plane's wreckage "within days".
"Hopefully with lots of transmissions we'll have a tight, small area and hopefully in a matter of days we'll be able to find something on the bottom that might confirm that this is the last resting place of MH370," he added.
Houston said that expert analysis on previously detected signals found they were not of natural origin, boosting hopes for the search's breakthrough.
Today's search involves up to 15 aircraft and 14 ships, as well as a sonar voice search.
The latest detection comes after Monday's announcement that Ocean Shield had picked up the signals twice, one of which lasted an hour and 20 minutes. It followed earlier detection by Chinese ship Haixun 01.
Despite the breakthrough, the massive search for the missing Boeing 777, entering its 33rd day today, has yet to find any debris to confirm that the plane had ended its journey in the southern Indian Ocean.
A cautious Houston said only the discovery of the wreckage could confirm the plane's final location.
"I'm not going to confirm anything until someone lays eyes on the wreckage," he said, as quoted by AFP.
"We need to make hay while the sun shines. We need all the data we can," he added, referring to the battery life of the black box signal.
Earlier, Commander William Marks of the US 7th Fleet warned that optimism was fading away in the search for MH370. There were also fears that the batteries to power the black box's locator beacons, which would last 30 days, could have run out. – April 9, 2014.
Adopted from: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/
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