Two fresh underwater signals possibly from the missing Malaysian jet’s black box have been detected with the head of the search team on Tuesday expressing optimism about finding the final resting place of the aircraft “in a matter of days”.
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 Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, have been recorded within approximately 27 kilometres of one another.
“Ocean Shield has been able to reacquire the signals on two more occasions, late Tuesday afternoon and later last night,” Angus Houston, head of the Joint Agency Coordination Centre which is leading the search, said.
Houston said the detection Tuesday afternoon was held for approximately five minutes and 32 seconds and the detection late night was held for nearly 7 minutes. The new information has narrowed the search area to 75,000 sq km from Tuesday’s 77,580 sq km area.
In another major development in the search for the plane, 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.
“They believe the signals to be consistent with the specification and description of a flight data recorder,” Houston said. “I’m now optimistic. We’ll find the aircraft or what’s left of the aircraft in the not too distant future,” he said.