Missing Malaysian Airlines plane: Chinese ship detects 'pulse'

Crew also spotted  white floating objects believed to be from the missing Malaysian Airline, MH370

Perth: A Chinese patrol ship, searching for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, may have finally detected a pulse signal with a frequency of 37.5 kHz per second in the southern Indian Ocean waters yesterday.

A file picture shows the Chinese ship Nan Hai Jiu searching for missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 over the southern Indian Ocean. Imagelibrary/EPA 

A black box detector deployed by the Haixun 01 picked up the signal at around 25 degrees south latitude and 101 degrees east longitude. It is yet to be established whether it is related to the missing jet.

The crew of a Chinese Ilyushin IL-76 plane spotted numerous white floating objects in about 20 minutes starting from 11.05 am and took pictures of them, Chinese military sources said.

The findings have been reported to Australia’s Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) coordinating the operation after the plane returned to Perth at 2.20 pm.

According to JACC, 10 military planes, three civil jets and 11 ships are assisting in Saturday’s search for the missing jet. The Australian defence vessel Ocean Shield and HMS Echo of the British navy continued underwater search operations. Both the vessels, using a Towed Pinger Locator from the US Navy began the underwater search for emissions from the black-box pinger from flight MH370 on Friday.

“The Australian Maritime Safety Authority has determined a search area of about 217,000 sq km, 1700 km northwest of Perth,” the JACC said in its Saturday update. “Today’s search area will focus on three areas within the same vicinity,” it said.

The Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 vanished mysteriously about an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur shortly after midnight on March 8 this year.

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