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Race for MH370's black box

April 9, 2014

An Australian ship has detected electronic transmissions that are consistent with a flight data recorder. Search teams hope the signals will lead them to MH370's black box.

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Black Box Transponder Flug MH 370 Malaysian Airlines
Image: picture-alliance/dpa

The Australian Navy's Ocean Shield has picked up two more electronic transmissions during its search for missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. Data analysis has indicated that the transmissions are consistent with a flight data recorder, search coordinator Angus Houston said on Wednesday.

"The transmission was not of natural origin and was likely sourced from specific electronic equipment," Houston, the head of the Joint Agency Coordination Centre, told reporters in Perth.

"They believe the signals to be consistent with the specification…of a flight data recorder," Houston said.

Ocean Shield picked up electronic transmissions twice over the weekend. The ship detected a signal again on Tuesday afternoon for five minutes and then again at night for seven minutes.

Houston said that search crews were racing against the clock since flight data recorders have a battery shelf-life of 30 days. MH370 went missing on March 8 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board.

The search focused on the southern Indian Ocean after analysis of data from radar and satellites.

Search crews hope to use the electronic signals to pin point the location of the plane's wreckage. So far, no debris from the plane has been found.

slk/se (AP, AFP)