The crew of a Chinese search plane has spotted "suspicious objects" floating in the southern Indian Ocean on Monday while searching for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 off Australia, according to official news agency Xinhua.
The crew has reported the coordinates to the Australian command centre as well as Chinese icebreaker Xuelong, which is en-route to the sea area. Reports indicate the floating objects include "white and rectangular" items.
The Chinese Air Force Ilyushin Il-76 plane took off on Monday morning from RAAF Base Pearce, in the first Chinese air search operation since two of its military aircraft arrived in Perth on Saturday.At the request of the Australian air force, one Australian pilot was on board the Chinese plane to join the search, Xinhua reported.
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The focus of the multinational search has shifted to the southern Indian Ocean after Australia said Thursday that satellite imagery identified suspicious debris that might be linked to the missing plane in waters some 2400 km from Perth.
China and France have since released further satellite imagery over the weekend showing suspicious objects in the same region which could be linked to the missing Malaysia Airlines flight.
The plane, which went missing on March 8, had 239 passenger and crew onboard, including six Australians.
The United States Navy earlier announced it would send a state-of-the-art black box finder to the search area.
The Navy's Pacific Command, based in the Philippines, is moving the sophisticated equipment into the area "as a precautionary measure in case a debris field is located".
The "Towed Pinger Locator 25" is a hyper-sensitive hydrophone that the Navy claims can locate black boxes on commercial aircraft down to a maximum depth of 6000 metres anywhere in the world.
The locator, which is towed behind a vessel at slow speeds, carries a passive listening device for detecting pingers on black boxes that automatically transmit an acoustic pulse. The pulse only lasts for 30 days.
"This movement is simply a prudent effort to preposition equipment and trained personnel closer to the search area so that if debris is found we will be able to respond as quickly as possible since the battery life of the black box's pinger is limited," said Commander Chris Budde from US Seventh Fleet Operations.
If found, the acoustic signal of the pinger is transmitted up the cable and is presented audibly. The operator monitors the greatest signal strength and records the navigation coordinates. This procedure is repeated on multiple track lines until the final position is triangulated.
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