Experts Analyze Ping Data While Search for MH370 Continues

World Today

This handout photo taken on April 7, 2014 and released on April 9, 2014 by Australian Defence shows HMAS Perth refuelled by HMAS Success during a replenishment at sea while searching for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean. Two fresh signals have been picked up Australian ship Ocean Shield in the search for missing Malaysian flight MH370, raising hopes that wreckage will be found within days even as black box batteries start to expire. AFP PHOTO/AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE/ABIS NICOLAS GONZALEZ

Planes and ships hunting for the missing Malaysian jetliner zeroed in on a targeted patch of the Indian Ocean on Thursday, after a navy ship picked up underwater signals that are consistent with a plane’s black box.

Depth of ocean in search for MH370Australian Navy ship Ocean Shield picked up signals that are consistent with a plane’s flight recorder.

Spectrum analysis is showing the received frequencies of the signal via the towed pinger locator.

It is a 12kHz window centred on 37.5 kHz, the same frequency emitted by flight data recorders.

Thursday’s search zone was the smallest yet in the monthlong hunt for Flight 370, and comes a day after the Australian official in charge of the search expressed hope that crews were closing in on the “final resting place” of the vanished jet.

14 planes and 13 ships were looking for floating debris across the 57,900 square kilometre (22,300 square mile) search zone, about 2,300 kilometres (1,400 miles) northwest of Perth, and China’s Haixun 01 was using underwater acoustic equipment to search for signals in an area several hundred miles south of the Ocean Shield.

Finding the flight data and cockpit voice recorders soon is important because their locator beacons have a battery life of about a month, and Tuesday marked one month since Flight 370 vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing with 239 people aboard.

Report complied with information from The Associated Press.