Perth: Amid fears that batteries of the crashed Malaysian plane’s black boxes may have died, authorities on Sunday began to narrow the search area in the Indian Ocean to deploy an underwater drone to spot the debris.
Searchers hunting for Flight MH370 have so far failed to find any confirmed clues about the black boxes, as no new signals have been detected since last of the four other signals were heard on April 8. “Up to 11 military aircraft, one civil aircraft and 14 ships will assist in today’s search,” the Joint Agency Coordination Centre said, adding the centre of the search areas was set approximately 2,200 km north west of Perth.
The batteries powering the black box are certified to be working for 30 days, but can still provide weak signals for some more days. Stored in a plane’s tail, they are designed to begin sending off distinct, high-pitched signals as soon as they come in contact with water.
No mid-flight call from MH370
Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia on Sunday rejected claims that phone calls were made from Flight MH370 before it vanished, but refused to rule out any possibility in a so far fruitless investigation into the jet’s disappearance.
The New Straits Times had reported on Saturday that co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid made a call which ended abruptly, possibly “because the aircraft was fast moving away from the (telecommunications) tower”.
There had also been reports of calls by the Malaysia Airlines plane’s captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah before or during the flight.
