A submarine is to be sent deep into the Indian Ocean to try to determine whether signals detected by sound-locating equipment were from the flight data and cockpit voice recorders of the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.
The move comes after crews picked up a series of underwater sounds over the past two weeks that were consistent with an aircraft’s black boxes.
However, no signal has been heard since last Tuesday and crews on the Australian search ship Ocean Shield have decided to launch the sub to comb the area 15,000 feet below the surface of the sea to try to locate the aircraft.
It is expected to take six weeks to two months to complete its search of the area where the aircraft went down several hours after disappearing from air traffic control radars as it flew from Malaysia to Beijing on March 8, with 239 people onboard.
An oil slick has been detected in the search zone, some of which has been collected and is being sent back to land for testing over the next few days.
