In a race against time, the arduous hunt for the Malaysia Airlines jet on Friday entered a new phase with two hi-tech ships scouring a large area in the remote Indian Ocean for the jet’s black box before signals from it fall silent in four days time.
Two naval ships with locator capabilities are searching a 240km underwater path, in the hope of recovering the plane’s data recorder that could help investigators unravel the mystery of what happened on March 8, the day the Beijing-bound Flight MH370 dropped off radar.
Up to 14 planes and nine ships are participating in Friday’s search for the Boeing 777-200. The British Royal Navy survey ship HMS Echo and the Australian naval supply ship Ocean Shield began searching the ocean’s depths on Friday, said retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, the head of the Perth-based Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC), said.
The Ocean Shield is equipped with high-tech gear borrowed from the United States: the TPl-25, a giant underwater microphone that will listen for the pings from the flight data recorders, and the Bluefin-21, an underwater robot that can scour the ocean bed for signs of wreckage.
The HMS Echo also has advanced sensor equipment.