Perth: Searchers hunting for the missing Malaysian jet are “confident” about the position of the aircraft’s black box to within “some kilometres” and the signals detected recently emanated from it, the Australian Prime Minister said on Friday. “It’s been very much narrowed down because we’ve now had a series of detections, some for quite a long period of time,” Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said.
“Nevertheless, we’re getting to the stage where the signal from what we are very confident is the black box is starting to fade. We are hoping to get as much information as we can before the signal finally expires,” he told reporters in the east Chinese city of Shanghai. The development comes more than a month after the Beijing-bound Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 Flight MH370 with 239 people, including five Indians, disappeared under mysterious circumstances. “We are confident that we know the position of the black box flight recorder to within some kilometres. But confidence in the approximate position of the black box is not the same as recovering wreckage from almost 4.5 kilometres beneath the sea or finally determining all that happened on that flight,” Abbott said.
The Prime Minister, however, said he would not go into further details until he had briefed Chinese President Xi Jinping personally. Abbott also offered support to the Chinese relatives mourning their loved ones who were on the plane. “I grieve with all the bereaved, especially the family and friends of the 154 Chinese victims, and I offer them the assurance that Australia will not rest until we have done everything we can to provide comfort and closure,” he said. An Australian naval aircraft on Thursday picked up an underwater signal in the same area where searchers in ships previously detected sounds consistent with a jet’s black box. However, the head of Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) which is leading the search said today that the signal detected yesterday is “unlikely to be related to aircraft black boxes” “The Australian Joint Acoustic Analysis Centre has analysed the acoustic data and confirmed that the signal reported in the vicinity of the Australian Defence Vessel Ocean Shield is unlikely to be related to the aircraft black boxes,” Angus Houston said.
“Further analysis continues to be undertaken by Australian Joint Acoustic Analysis Centre,” Houston said. This was the fifth signal that was detected recently. Australian ship Ocean Shield towing a pinger locater reacquired two signals on Tuesday after detecting two on Saturday. The signals on Saturday were found to be consistent with aircraft black boxes. “A decision as to when to deploy the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle will be made on advice from experts on board the Ocean Shield and could be some days away,” Houston said. “It is vital to glean as much information as possible while the batteries on the underwater locater beacons may still be active,” he said. “On the information I have available to me, there has been no major breakthrough in the search for MH370. I will provide a further update if, and when, further information becomes available,” Houston said.
The JACC said that up to 12 military aircraft, three civil aircraft and 13 ships were part of today’s hunt. Australia has been leading the search since the operation was moved to the Indian Ocean. (PTI)
