Chinese patrol ship detects signal in Indian Ocean

Chinese patrol ship Haixun 01 - File Photo

KUALA LUMPUR: A Chinese patrol ship discovered a pulse signal with a frequency of 37.5 kHz while looking for the Malaysia Airlines (MAS) aircraft in the southern Indian Ocean on Saturday, state news agency Xinhua reported.

According to a pinger manufacturer, that is same frequency used for black boxes – the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder.

“That is the standard beacon frequency,” Anish Patel, president of pinger manufacturer Dukane Seacom told CNN.

However the latest find has not been verified by the Joint Coordination Centre in Perth, who is coordinating the search operation for flight MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean.

Experts cautioned that the signal could come from a number of different objects apart from the aircraft.

This latest development comes 29 days after the Boeing 777-200 aircraft mysteriously disappeared while on route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur on March 8.

A few hours before the Xinhua report, Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein had announced Malaysia will appoint an independent Investigator-In-Charge, orICC, to lead an investigating team into the disappearance of flight MH370.

The team will include Australia, China, the United States, Britain and France.

Australian and British vessels are currently involved in a round-the-clock underwater search in the southern Indian Ocean, hoping to pick up a signal from the plane’s black box recorder, but the battery powering those emissions is nearing the end of its roughly 30-day life span.

Xinhua said in a brief dispatch, the Haixun 01 picked up the signal at about 25 degrees south latitude and 101 degrees east longitude.

“Suspected pulse signal picked up by Haixun 01 has not been identified yet,” the China Maritime Search and Rescue Center said on a verified microblog.

Australian Defence Minister David Johnston echoed the call, saying he had not received a report on the signal and warned that it may not be from the plane.

“This is not the first time we have had something that has turned out to be very disappointing,” he told ABC television.

He added he was going to wait for JACC chief Angus Houstan and his team to come forward with something that’s positive as the search operation for the missing flight MH370 was a very difficult task.

Authorities still have no idea how or why the plane vanished, and warn that unless the black box is found, the mystery may never be solved.

The Ocean Shield, which is carrying a US Navy "black box" detector, and HMS Echo, are searching a 240-kilometre track of ocean in hopes of detecting sonic pings from the recorder.

However, progress is painstaking as vessels must move slowly to improve readings, and officials have acknowledge there is no solid evidence the plane went down in that stretch of sea.

"The search using sub-surface equipment needs to be methodical and carefully executed in order to effectively detect the faint signal of the pinger," Commodore Peter Leavy said.

Astro Awani