The US Navy, which has supplied the detection device, said in a statement Monday: “Without confirmation of debris it will be virtually impossible to effectively employ the TPL since the range on the black-box pinger is only about a mile.”
But Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said no time limit would be imposed on the search for clues as to what happened.
“We owe it to the families, we owe it to everyone that travels by air, we owe it to the anxious governments of the countries who had people on that aircraft. We owe it to the wider world which has been transfixed by this mystery for three weeks now,” Abbott said in Perth.
The Australian vessel Ocean Shield, fitted with the pinger locator and an underwater drone designed to home in on the black box’s signal, was set to head to the search area.
A black box signal usually lasts only about 30 days. Fears are mounting that time will run out – Ocean Shield will not reach the search zone, now the size of Norway, until Thursday, roughly 26 days after the plane went missing.
If floating MH370 debris is found, authorities plan to analyse recent weather patterns and ocean currents to determine where the plane went down.
Malaysia believes MH370 was deliberately diverted by someone on board and that satellite data indicates it crashed in the remote Indian Ocean.
Malaysia remains officially in charge, but Australia has assumed increasing responsibility, appointing retired air chief marshal Angus Houston to head a new coordination centre in Perth.
About The Author
