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- Tuesday marks exactly one month since the plane vanished
- Possible signals from lost jet’s black boxes heard, then lost
- How much has the far-flung search cost?
Search crews have failed to relocate faint sounds heard deep below the Indian Ocean that officials said were consistent with a plane’s black boxes, the head of the search operation said on Tuesday.
Today marks exactly one month since Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 mysteriously disappeared.
Angus Houston, the retired Australian air chief marshal who is heading the search operation far off Australia’s west coast, said sound locating equipment has picked up no trace of the signals since they were first heard late on Saturday and early on Sunday.
WATCH: Malaysian officials ‘cautiously hopeful’ about latest developments
Time is running out to find the devices as their locator beacons have a battery life of about a month. Once the beacons blink off, locating the black boxes in such deep water would be an immensely difficult, if not impossible, task.
READ MORE: ‘Most promising lead’ as possible signals from lost jet’s black boxes heard
Houston said finding the sound again was critical to narrowing down the search area before a sub can be used.
“If we go down there now and do the visual search it will take many, many, many days because it’s very slow, very painstaking work to scour the ocean floor. So – and of course the depths are very deep and it’s very challenging,” Houston said.
Australia’s defence minister, David Johnston, said up to now, 133 search missions have been completed.
Up to 14 planes and as many ships were focusing on a single search area covering 77, 580 square kilometres (29,954 square miles) of ocean, 2,270 kilometres (1,400 miles) northwest of the Australian city of Perth, with good weather predicted.
‘Needle in the haystack’
The Malaysian Acting Transport Minister said on Tuesday there was “nothing new” to report in the search for the missing flight.
Hishammudin Hussein told media in Kuala Lumpur that they “await more information from Perth and basically that’s the best lead that we have.”
READ MORE: How much is it all costing?
Meanwhile, the navy commander in charge of the United States search efforts said the scale of the operations was unprecedented.
U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Adam Schantz said “it is the needle in the haystack that we’re looking for.”
– with files from The Associated Press
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