PERTH, Australia (AP) — A ship searching for the missing Malaysian jet has detected two more underwater signals, raising hopes the wreckage of the plane will be spotted soon, the Australian official in charge of the search said Wednesday.
Angus Houston, the head of a joint agency coordinating the search for the missing plane in the southern Indian Ocean, said that the Australian navy's Ocean Shield picked up the two signals in a sweep on Tuesday.
"I think we are looking in the right area but I am not prepared to confirm anything until such time someone lays eyes on the wreckage," he said.
The Ocean Shield first detected the sounds late Saturday and early Sunday before losing them, but managed to find them again on Tuesday, Houston said. The ship is equipped with a U.S. Navy towed pinger locator that is designed to pick up signals from a plane's black boxes — the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder.
"Hopefully in a matter of days, we will be able to find something on the bottom that might confirm that this is the last resting place of MH370," Houston said at a news conference in Perth, the starting point for the search in the southern Indian Ocean.
"I'm now optimistic that we will find the aircraft, or what is left of the aircraft, in the not too distant future — but we haven't found it yet, because this is a very challenging business," he said. - AP
(Reuters) - Australian officials said on Wednesday that two new "ping" signals had been detected in the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, injecting fresh confidence into the search that had been struggling with a lack of information.
Angus Houston, head of the Australian agency coordinating the search, said one ping was detected on Tuesday afternoon and lasted five minutes, 25 seconds, while a second was picked up on Tuesday night and lasted seven minutes.
"I believe we are searching in the right area but we need to visually identify aircraft wreckage before we can confirm with certainty that this is the final resting place of MH370," Houston told reporters in Perth.
On the weekend, a U.S. Navy "towed pinger locator" picked up two signals consistent with black box locator beacons - the first for more than two hours and the second for about 13 minutes.
The black boxes record cockpit data and may provide answers about what happened to the plane, which was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew when it vanished on March 8 and flew thousands of kilometres off its Kuala Lumpur-to-Beijing route.
But the batteries in the beacons have already reached the end of their 30-day expected life, making efforts to swiftly locate them all the more critical.
Authorities say evidence suggests the plane was deliberately diverted by someone familiar with the aircraft, but have not ruled out mechanical problems.
Analysis of satellite data led investigators to conclude the Boeing 777 came down in a remote area of the Indian Ocean near Perth. The search is now centred on an area approximately 2,261 kilometres (1,405 miles) northwest of that city.
Houston said that the new signals may allow officials to narrow down the search area to the point where an autonomous underwater vehicle named Bluefin-21, which is onboard the Ocean Shield, could be sent to look for wreckage on the sea floor.
"Now hopefully with lots of transmissions we'll have a tight, small area and hopefully in a matter of days we will be able to find something on the bottom," he said.
