Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein (centre) answers questions from journalists during a press conference to give an update on flight MH370 search during the 14th Defence Services Asia Exhibition & Conference at the Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC) in Kuala Lumpur. — AFP photo
PERTH: While there have been no confirmation of acoustic detections over the past 48 hours, search in the Indian Ocean for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 continued yesterday with a bigger search area.
Entering its 37th day, the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) said the Australian Maritime Safety Authority had planned a visual search area, totalling approximately 57,506 sq km, as compared to 41,393 sq km on Saturday.
The assets involved in yesterday’s search had also increased with two more military aircraft joining the operation in addition to nine yesterday.
“Up to 11 military aircraft, one civil aircraft and 14 ships will assist in today’s search,” the agency said in a statement yesterday, adding that the centre of the search areas was set approximately 2,200 km north west of Perth.
In an effort to narrow the underwater search area in which the autonomous underwater vehicle is deployed, JACC said the Australian defence vessel, Ocean Shield continued more focused sweeps with the towed pinger locator to try and locate further signals related to the aircraft’s black box.
While, the AP-3C Orions continued their acoustic search, the oceanographic ship, HMS Echo was also working in the area with Ocean Shield, it said.
“The weather forecast for today is south easterly winds with isolated showers, sea swells up to one metre and visibility of five kms in showers,” it said.
Last Wednesday, JACC chief coordinator, Air Chief Marshal (Retired) Angus Houston said the autonomous underwater vehicle would be deployed once signals could no longer be detected.
The authority had estimated the black box’s battery to last ten days longer than its 30-day lifespan before it goes offline from transmitting pulse signals.
The aircraft’s black box, comprising a flight data recorder and a cockpit voice recorder, may unlock the questions as to what happened to MH370 which veered thousands of kilometres from its intended Kuala Lumpur-to-Beijing route on March 8. — Bernama