PERTH: Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) head retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston says Australia is taking the latest lead in the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 seriously.
Houston says Royal Navy Ship HMS Echo and Australian Defence Vessel Ocean Shield are being diverted to verify or discount the electronic pulse signals detected by Chinese ship, Haixun 01.
“The fact the ship made two detections has provided some promise,” he said at a press conference on Sunday.
However, he urged the media to treat the information carefully and reiterated that it remained unverified.
Houston added that HMS Echo should be at the scene fairly quickly while Ocean Shield is investigating another “acoustic event” some 300 nautical miles away which is also being taken seriously.
Ocean Shield is carrying sophisticated equipment designed to pick up signals sent from black boxes.
Houston said that HMS Echo would take approximately 14 hours to get to the new location.
Up to 10 military planes, two civil planes and 13 ships will assist in the search for missing MH370.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (Amsa) has three separate search areas planned for Sunday about 2,000km northwest of Perth, which totals approximately 216,000 sq km.
Weather in the search area is expected to be good with a cloud base of 2,500 feet and visibility greater than 10km.
– The Star
