– Hunt for ‘black box’ –
The US Navy has added to the sense of an approaching denouement, ordering a specialised device sent to the region to help find the “black box” flight and cockpit voice data — crucial in determining what happened to the plane.
The high-tech device can locate black boxes as deep as 20,000 feet (6,060 metres), the US Seventh Fleet said in a statement. The search area ranges from 3,000-4,000 metres deep.
The 30-day signal from the black box is due to fail in less than two weeks. READ: Last words from missing Malaysian jet spoken by co-pilot.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority said the search grew to 10 aircraft on Monday with the inclusion of two Chinese military aircraft joining Australian, US, and Japanese planes.
China has also dispatched seven ships, adding to British and Australian naval vessels involved.
If a crash is confirmed, recovering the black box will be even more difficult than the case of the Air France jet that went down in the Atlantic in 2009, said Charitha Pattiaratchi, an oceanographer at the University of Western Australia.
“We have to remember that Air France 447 took two years to find and this is a more challenging region where the environment is much, much harsher. There are bigger waves and it’s windier,” he said.
As part of an investigation into the crash, Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said police have interviewed more than 100 people, including families of both the pilot and co-pilot.
Malaysia Airlines said Monday that 27-year-old co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid was flying the Boeing 777 for the first time without a so-called “check co-pilot” looking over his shoulder.
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