THE search for missing plane MH370 has been narrowed down to a tiny grid of 40km by 50km.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott revealed the update to Chinese media here in Beijing this afternoon.
Earlier he had said the ping from the black boxes was rapidly fading But an hour ago be revealed that Australian search teams were closing in on the signal.
The Australian vessel Ocean Shield towing a US Navy device that detects black box signals has to date recorded four signals that are believed to have come from at least a black box flight recorder.
Latest indication on where the black box could be
The ocean Shield was yesterday in an area about 2200km northwest of Perth continuing sweeps of its pinger locator to detect further signals. Orion aircraft were also continuing acoustic searches.
The plane’s black boxes, or flight data and cockpit voice recorders, may hold the answers to why the aeroplane lost communications and veered so far off course when it vanished on Saturday March 8 while flying from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing with 239 people on board.
Search crews are racing against time because the batteries powering the devices’ locator beacons last only about a month — and more than a month has passed since the plane disappeared. Finding the black boxes after the batteries fail will be extremely difficult because the water in the area is 4,500 meters deep.
source: news.com.au
