Malaysia plane search chief: Electronic pulses an 'encouraging lead'

The head of the multinational search for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet said early Sunday that electronic pulses reportedly picked up earlier by a Chinese ship are an “encouraging lead,” but he stressed that they are not yet confirmed to be coming from Flight MH370.

Retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston told reporters at a news conference in Perth, Australia, that two naval ships with high-tech equipment are being sent to the area off western Australia where the pulses were reported to try to confirm or rule out whether they were from the missing plane's flight recorders.

"This is an important and encouraging lead," Houston said, adding that searchers' reported detection of a second “acoustic event” about 1.2 miles from a pulse detected earlier “provides some promise which requires a full investigation of the location.” But he urged caution in drawing any conclusions before the signals are verified.

"I issued a press release last night that the characteristics [of the pulses] were consistent with an aircraft black box, and confirmed a number of white objects about 90 kilometers (about 56 miles) from the detected signal," Houston said. "I made it clear that it wasn't verifiable at that point in time – and that remains the case."

He said that the Australian vessel HMS Ocean Shield also is investigating a separate acoustic detection.

On Saturday, Malaysia vowed that it would not give up on trying to find the missing jetliner and announced details of a multinational investigation team to solve the aviation mystery, as the search for the plane entered its fifth week.

Military and civilian planes, ships with deep-sea searching equipment and a British nuclear submarine have been scouring a remote patch of the southern Indian Ocean off Australia's west coast, in an increasingly urgent hunt for debris and the "black box" recorders that hold vital information about MH370's last hours.

After weeks of fruitless looking, officials face the daunting prospect that sound-emitting beacons in the flight and voice recorders will soon fall silent as their batteries die after sounding electronic "pings" for a month.

China's official news agency, Xinhua, had reported Saturday that a Chinese ship that is part of the multinational search effort had detected a "pulse" signal in the southern Indian Ocean. That report also said it was not determined whether the signal was related to the missing jet.

A black box detector deployed by the vessel, Haixun 01, picked up a signal at 37.5Hz per second at around 25 degrees south latitude and 101 degrees east longitude, Xinhua said.

At the news conference in Perth on Sunday, officials said two Australian vessels, HMS Echo and HMS Ocean Shield, would be sent to the location of the detected signal to investigate further. Echo could arrive at the area within hours, but Ocean Shield is investigating a third “acoustic event” hundreds of miles away and could be in the location of the other two detected signals within days, Commodore Peter Leavy told reporters.

The ships "have special equipment that can help us make the judgment on whether there is anything down there," Houston said. 

The Boeing 777 disappeared March 8 while en route from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing with 239 people aboard. So far, no trace of the jet has been found.

Hishammuddin Hussein, Malaysia's defense minister and acting transport minister, told reporters in Kuala Lumpur that the cost of mounting the search was immaterial compared to providing solace for the families of those on board by establishing what happened.

"I can only speak for Malaysia, and Malaysia will not stop looking for MH370," Hishammuddin said.

At a media briefing, Hishammuddin announced that an independent investigator would be appointed and three main areas of inquiry would be pursued. One team will look at airworthiness, including maintenance, structures and systems; another will examine operations, such as flight recorders and meteorology; and a third will consider medical and human factors.

The overall investigation team will include officials and experts from Australia — which as the nearest country to the search zone is currently heading the hunt, with other nations' help — as well as China, the United States, Britain and France, Hishammuddin said.

Officials have said the hunt for the wreckage of MH370 is among the most difficult ever undertaken, and will get much harder still if the beacons fall silent before they are found.

"Where we're at right now, four weeks since this plane disappeared, we're much, much closer," said aviation expert Geoffrey Thomas, editor-in-chief of AirlineRatings.com. "But frustratingly, we're still miles away from finding it. We need to find some piece of debris on the water; we need to pick up the ping."

If it doesn't happen, the only hope for finding the plane may be a full survey of the Indian Ocean floor, an operation that would take years and an enormous international operation.