Searchers again hear pings in search for Malaysia flight

PERTH, Australia – A ship searching for the missing Malaysian jet has detected two more underwater signals, raising hopes the wreckage of the plane will soon be found, the Australian official in charge of the search said today.

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 Tuesday, and that analysis of two sounds detected in the same area last week showed they were consistent with a plane’s black boxes.

“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,” Houston said at a news conference in Perth, the hub for the search operation.

The Ocean Shield first detected underwater sounds on Saturday before losing them, but managed to pick up signals again on Tuesday, Houston said. The ship is equipped with a U.S. Navy towed pinger locator that is designed to detect signals from a plane’s two black boxes: the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder.

An analysis of the signals detected Saturday determined they were stable, distinct and clear sounds that pulsed consistently, indicating they were coming from a plane’s black box, Houston said.

Despite the promising evidence, Houston warned that he could not yet definitely say searchers had pinpointed Flight 370’s crash site.

“I think that we’re looking in the right area, but I’m not prepared to say – to confirm – anything until such time as somebody lays eyes on the wreckage,” he said.

Finding the black boxes quickly is a matter of urgency, because their locator beacons have a battery life of only about a month, and Tuesday marked exactly one month since the plane vanished. Once the beacons blink off, locating the black boxes in such deep water would be immensely difficult, if not impossible.