- US naval officer leading search said finding black box was 'untenable'
- Experts say without box the jet's fate could never be discovered
- Officials say box may be in trench twice the depth of Grand Canyon
- Ocean Shield, a warship with a black box locator, joined search
- 'No objects related to MH370 have been recovered' - Australian officials
- 'Miracles do happen' - Malaysian minister tells families of missing
A US naval officer leading the search for the missing Malaysian Airlines jet admitted today that finding the aircraft's black box flight recorder was an enormous, if not impossible, task.
Captain Mark Matthews said finding the recorder was 'untenable' as experts point out unless the black box is found, it will be very difficult to ever work out the exact fate of the missing jet.
Asked about the chances of finding the black box in the coming days, Captain Matthews said: 'It all depends on how effective we are at reducing the search area.'
The search-and-recovery expert, who was involved in the two-year search for the black box of Air France flight 447 after it crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009, added: 'Right now, the search is bascially the size of the Indian Ocean, which is an untenable amount of time to search.'
U.S. Navy Captain Mark Matthews, right, said today finding the missing Malaysian Airlines jet would be an enormous task - one that may never be achieved due to a series of complications
The Ocean Shield, pictured, an Australian warship fitted with a black box locator, will join the search for missing MH370 today. The news comes as officials say the black box could have fallen into a trench twice the depth of the Grand Canyon
A towed pinger locator - which can detect a black box down to a depth of 20,000 ft, sits on the wharf in Perth today ready to be fitted to the defense ship Ocean Shield
The news comes as a warship with an aircraft black box detector joined the search for the jet. The Ocean Shield will be equipped with the U.S. Navy's Towed Pinger Locator and an unmanned underwater vehicle, as well as other acoustic detection equipment.
It will take three to four days for the ship to reach the search zone - an area roughly the size of Poland about 1,150 miles to the west of Australia.
But Captain Matthews pointed out that the locator can only detect pings from the black box if it is within a mile of its undersea beacon. Added to the difficulty is the fact that the locator can only be towed a snail-like pace of 3mph to be effective.
Additionally, the ship towing the pinger needs to be directed to the source of debris identified as coming from the missing aircraft.
Even if debris is confirmed to be from the aircraft, the crew on Ocean Shield will have to wait for oceanographers to work out exactly where the jet actually hit the water before the pinger can be taken to that area to search for signals from the black box.
Experts say that because of the way the currents run, the point of impact could be many hundreds of miles from any debris that is now found - and so far those searches have turned up nothing.
The Ocean Shield will join at least 10 ships and eight planes currently searching an area off the west coast of Australia for the missing jet
A sensor for the towed pinger locator. The ship will take around three days to get to the search site - around 1,150 miles from the west of Australia
If it is ever located, retrieving the black box in itself is complicated.
The sea floor within the search area is covered in sediment - and includes several deep ridges.
The area is also dominated by Broken Ridge, a plateau where depths range from as shallow as about 2,625 feet to about 9,843 feet.
At the edge of the plateau closest to Antarctica is the Diamantina trench, which sea floor mappers have found is as deep as 19,000 feet - twice the depth of the Grand Canyon - though it could be deeper in places that have not been measured.
Australian Navy workers see to a Blue Fin 21 Automatic Underwater Vehicle - part of the equipment used on the Ocean Shield
Ships searching for debris in the hunt for missing flight MH370 have retrieved some objects from the Southern Indian Ocean. The Australian authorities coordinating the operation said none have been confirmed to have come from the missing Boeing 777
Chinese aircraft spotted three new objects floating off the western coast of Australia, as they scoured the new search area today. The items were said to be red, orange and white - similar to the colours of a Malaysia Airlines jet. This picture shows a suspected item of debris highlighted
Chinese aircraft scouring a new search area in the Indian Ocean spotted three suspicious items, coloured red, white and orange, floating around 1,150 miles off the coast of Perth
Matthews said the Navy's ping locator has the 'capability to do search and recovery operations down to a depth of 20,000 feet.'
If the pinger locator technology fails, sonar will be used to map the sea bed, reports today suggest.
David Ferreira, an oceanographer at Reading University told the Sunday Times: 'Searching for crucial parts such as the aircraft's black box recorders is likely to be extremely difficult.
'The southern part of the new search includes a big cliff with a 6,000 metre-deep trench - a drop about twice that of the Grand Canyon.'
Data on the black boxes may help investigators solve what has become one of aviation's big mysteries - what happened to Flight 370, with speculation ranging from equipment failure and a botched hijacking to terrorism or an act by one of the pilots.
The battery life of the black box is about thirty days.
The Ocean Shield will join at least 10 planes and eight ships which took part in the search on Sunday.
Nothing from the missing jet has been found since it disappeared four weeks ago. Australian Maritime Safety Authority confirmed in a statement: 'So far no objects confirmed to be related to MH370 have been recovered.'
People attend a prayer and blessing service at the Fo Guang Shan Temple in Perth, Australia, for the missing jet
Worshippers send their blessings for those missing aboard the MH370 flight
Dr Mike Nahan, West Australian Minister for Multicultural Interests, attends the prayer and blessing service as the search for the jet continues
Hopes that three objects retrieved from the sea by a Chinese ship could be a major breakthrough in the hunt for the missing plane, were today dashed as Chinese state media announced the items were pieces of rubbish
Defence Minister Hishamuddin Hussin spent time today visiting family members of those missing on board flight MH370
Three pieces of debris spotted floating in the Southern Indian Ocean were the missing jet were revealed to be floating rubbish.
The items were recovered from the Southern Indian Ocean as the operation to locate the Malaysia Airlines jet, which vanished on March 8, entered its fourth week.
Sources said two ships - one Australian and one Chinese - were able to pick up 'a number of objects' during today's search, CBS News reported. But hopes were dashed when Chinese state media reported the items were floating bits of waste.
It has been reported that a Chinese ship was one of two to retrieve 'a number of objects' from the search area, though there has been no confirmation of whether they came from the missing plane
Crew members on board the Chinese ship Jinggangshan scours the target search area early today, in search of potential debris, spotted by aircraft
A boat and helicopter from the Chinese Maritime Safety Administration patrol ship (left) and crew on board a Chinese search ship hunt for a sign of the missing plane, which disappeared four weeks ago
Royal Australian Air Force pilot Flight Lieutenant Russell Adams speaks to the media after his AP-3C Orion returned from searching for debris or wreckage of the missing Flight MH370 in Perth. He reported they did not see or locate any wreckage searching in reasonably good weather with a vision of four or five kilometres
MH30 CAPTAIN ZAHARIE WAS 'PSYCHOLOGICALLY UNSTABLE'
MH370 Captain Zaharie was 'psychologically unstable' following a marriage break-up with his second wife, according to the President of the Malaysian Pilots Association.
Captain Abdul Manan Mansor told the MailOnline:'Everybody is [upset] about it, but when you have instability there are so many ways that a person who wants to suicide [can do it],' Mansor said.
'I have seen four or five pilots killing themselves because of marital problems.'
Earlier reports have said Zaharie's first wife and mother of his three grown children, Faiza Khanum Mustafa Khan, was leaving him after 30 years, and that relationship problems with another woman had left him 'in no state of mind to be flying'.
Capt Manan, a former Royal Malaysian Airforce pilot and Chief Executive of Malaysia's Aviation Management College also has his theory about what happened on board MH370 in the skies over South-East Asia, soon after take-off.
He said he believed Captain Zaharie was solely responsible for steering the aircraft off course and that the most likely scenario was pilot suicide.
'I believe it was only him, not the co-pilot [Fariq Abdul Hamid] who was in the cockpit flying the plane,' Capt Manan said.
'[Hamid] had very little experience as a pilot and he wouldn't know the mountains of Malaysia very well.
'I believe the co-pilot wasn't in the cockpit . . . was asked to go and check on something and the captain locked the door.
'I think . . . everybody would have been trying to break the door open, that's why the aircraft went down and up to 45,000 feet.
'The pilot pulled the aircraft to give the passengers negative and positive 'g', to disarm them [make] them stay put and don't disturb me.'
It comes as the operation hit another set back when an aircraft involved in the search was diverted after an emergency distress beacon went off near Antarctica.
The beacon, which is registered to a fishing vessel, is located about 3,241 kilometres south-west of Perth and 648 kilometres north of the Antarctic mainland.
Australian Maritime Safety Authority has attempted to contact the vessel but were unsuccessful.
The nature of distress is unclear at this stage, authorities said.
The nature of distress is unclear at this stage, authorities said.
AMSA's Rescue Coordination Centre has re-tasked a RAAF P3 Orion from the search for MH370 to fly the area and render assistance if required. The aircraft is equipped with survival apparatus and is able to drop it down to the vessel if required.
A civil jet with an Aero Rescue search and rescue mission coordinator and State Emergency Observers has been tasked out of Melbourne to investigate the beacon also.
It is understood it will take five hours to transit the 3,889 kilometres to the location and will have two hours on scene before having to return - much like the search operation for MH370.
A service of remembrance for the missing flight took place in Perth today at the Fo Guang Shan Temple in Maylands.
Malaysian Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said he refuses to give up hope of finding some of the 239 passengers and crew alive.
He said his country is committed to seeing the investigation through to its final conclusion.
'I cannot give them (relatives) false hope,' he said. 'The best we can do is pray and be sensitive to them, that as long as there is even a remote chance of a survivor, we will pray and do whatever it takes.'
'What they (relatives) want from us is a commitment to continue the search, and that I have given, not only on behalf of the Malaysian government but the so many nations involved.
'For me as the minister responsible, this is the hardest part of my life, at the moment.
'Miracles do happen, remote or otherwise, and that is the hope that the families want me to convey not only to the Malaysian government, MAS, but also to the world at large.'
Earlier today a Chinese military plane hunting for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 spotted suspicious red, white and orange objects floating in the South Indian Ocean.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority objects spotted by aircraft cannot be verified or discounted as being from Flight 370 until they are relocated and recovered by ships
The crew onboard a Royal Malaysian Air Force C-130 Hercules unload the aircraft after it landed at RAAF Base Pearce to to help with the search for debris or wreckage. Five search aircraft yesterday spotted possible debris in the new search area
Australian officials coordinating the operation moved the search area 680 miles north east yesterday - it was shifted after new radar data analysis suggested the jet flew faster than originally thought and would have used up more fuel, which might have reduced the distance it travelled.
'Miracles do happen, remote or otherwise, and that is the hope that the families want me to convey not only to the Malaysian government, MAS, but also to the world at large'
- Malaysian minister Hishammuddin Hussein
The Chinese navy vessel Jinggangshan, which carries two helicopters, reached the new search area early today where it was expected to focus on searching for plane surfaces, oil slicks and life jackets.
A Chinese Ilyushin IL-76 flying over the new site detected the floating items - which bear the colours of the missing plane - today around 1,150 miles west of Perth, the official Xinhua news agency said.
That sighting follows reports of 'multiple objects of various colours' by international flight crews yesterday, according to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA).
Some looked like they were from fishing boats and nothing could be confirmed until they were recovered by ships, it added.
'We're hopeful to relocate some of the objects we were seeing yesterday,' Royal New Zealand Air Force Squadron Leader Flight Lieutenant Leon Fox said before flying out to the search zone on an Orion P-3.
'Hopefully some of the ships in the area will be able to start picking it up and give us an indication of what we were seeing.'
An Australian pilot returning from the search is said to have told reporters that objects spotted yesterday by Chinese crews have been marked with buoys to enable ships to locate them easily.
A crew member on board a Chinese IL-76 scans the target area in the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines passenger jet, which disappeared from radar screens on March 8 as it travelled from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing
An image of potential debris emerged yesterday after military planes spotted 'multiple objects of various colours' in a new search area in the Indian Ocean
A Royal New Zealand Air Force P-3K2 Orion taking off from the Royal Australian Air Force Pearce air base in Perth as the search for missing flight MH370 enters a fourth week
U.S. LAWYERS WILL FLY TO PERTH AS MULTI- MILLION LAWSUIT IS FILED
A U.S. law firm preparing a multi-million dollar case against Malaysia Airlines and Boeing is said to be sending teams to Perth.
Lawyers from aviation accident litigation experts Ribbeck Law Chartered, are expected to arrive in Australia in the coming weeks to meet families of the passengers of flight MH370, the Herald Sun reported.
On Tuesday a petition for discovery was filed against Boeing, the manufacturer of the aircraft, and Malaysian Airlines, the operator of the plane, the Chicago-based law firm revealed this week.
The petition, filed in Cook County, Illinois Circuit Court, asks a judge to order Malaysia Airlines and Boeing to hand over any evidence that may point to possible design or mechanical defects in the plane.
The filing initiates a multimillion dollar lawsuit against the airline and Boeing by the passengers' families.
'We believe that both defendants named are responsible for the disaster of Flight MH 370,' Monica Kelly, the lead Ribbeck lawyer in the case, said in the statement.
The petition was filed on behalf of Januari Siregar, whose son was on the flight.
Ms Kelly said additional action may be taken against other potential defendants, companies who designed or manufactured component parts of the plane, that may have failed.
Ribbeck is also asking that U.S. scientists be included in the search for wreckage and bodies, the firm said.
A spokesman for Boeing declined comment. A spokesman for Malaysian Airlines could not immediately be reached for comment.
Ms Kelly said a team will fly to Perth as soon as authorities confirmed debris from the plane had been found.
She said the firm expects to represent around half of the families of those on board flight MH370 and that the case has to be heard in Chicago, the home of Boeing's headquarters.
She said over the past week the firm had been contacted by dozens of relatives from Indonesia, Malaysia and China wanting to be part of the legal action it initiated this week.
Last year it emerged there may be cracking and corrosion problems with the fuselage skin of the Boeing 777.
The US Federal Aviation Administration issued a directive saying the problem could lead to rapid decompression and loss of structural integrity of the plane.
A sudden drop in cabin pressure could cause the crew and passengers to become unconscious, it added.
Last year it emerged there may be cracking and corrosion problems with the fuselage skin of the Boeing 777.
The US Federal Aviation Administration issued a directive saying the problem could lead to rapid decompression and loss of structural integrity of the plane.
A sudden drop in cabin pressure could cause the crew and passengers to become unconscious, it added.
He told reporters near Kuala Lumpur, after meeting several families of passengers on the plane, that there was no new information on the objects, which could just be regular debris, or could be from the missing plane.
'I've got to wait to get the reports on whether they have retrieved those objects... Those will give us some indication,' said Hishammuddin, who was accompanied by his wife and children as he visited the relatives at a hotel in Putrajaya, Malaysia.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority said that objects cannot be verified or discounted as being from Flight 370 until they are relocated and recovered by ships.
'It is not known how much flotsam, such as from fishing activities, is ordinarily there. At least one distinctive fishing object has been identified,' it said.
The three objects spotted by the Chinese plane Saturday were white, red and orange in color, the Xinhua news report said.
Flight 370 disappeared March 8 while bound from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, and investigators have been puzzling over what might have happened aboard the plane, with speculation ranging from equipment failure and a botched hijacking to terrorism or an act by one of the pilots.
The latter was fueled by reports the pilot's home flight simulator had files deleted from it, but Hishimmuddin said checks, including ones by the FBI, turned up no new information.
'What I know is that there is nothing sinister from the simulators but of course that will have to be confirmed by the chief of police,' he said.
Australia's Bureau of Meteorology said a cold front would bring rain, low clouds and reduced visibility over the southern part of the search area, with moderate winds and swells of up to 2 metres (6 feet).
Conditions are expected to improve tomorrow, although rain, drizzle and low clouds are still likely.
Newly analyzed satellite data shifted the search zone on Friday, raising hopes searchers may be closer to getting physical evidence that that the plane crashed in the Indian Ocean with 239 people aboard.
That would also help narrow the hunt for the wreckage and the plane's black boxes, which could contain clues to what caused the plane - flying to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur - to be so far off-course.
The U.S. Navy has already sent equipment that can detect pings from the back boxes, and Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott told reporters in Sydney that the equipment would be put on an Australian naval ship soon.
'It will be taken to the most prospective search area and if there is good reason to deploy it, it will be deployed,' he said, without giving a timeframe.
VAST FIELDS OF RUBBISH FLOATING ACROSS THE WORLD'S OCEANS
The search for debris from missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has turned the spotlight on thousands of pieces of rubbish floating on the surface of the ocean.
Vast floating rubbish tips containing plastics, old appliances, cargo containers, driftwood and regurgitated flotsam from the tsunami that struck Indonesia 10 years ago.
Marine scientist Marcus Eriksen, who has mapped ocean debris for the US-based Five Gyres Institute, said the majority of the world's seaborne waste is generated in the northern hemisphere.
The search for missing flight MH370 has turned the spotlight on to vast fields of floating rubbish
He says large bits of 'macro debris' are often found closer to the coasts of more densely populated areas.
Meanwhile those items swirling further out to sea, in the gyres, are often day-to-day items like plastic bottles and bags.
In theory he said the fact items of possible debris have been spotted thousands of miles from land, could indicate they are linked to the missing aircraft.
The waters in the area are among the cleanest in the world, Erik van Sebille, an oceanographer who has tracked currents for the University of New South Wales in Australia, told the BBC.
Most of the water from the Southern Ocean gets 'flushed northwards' towards the Equator. He said that fact could reduce - though does not eliminate - the possibility that floating objects in the search zone could be seaborne garbage from Asia.
There are known to be several of these giant garbage fields floating across the world's surface.
A lookout scanning the Indian Ocean's surface from the Royal Australian Navy ship HMAS Success
The Pacific garbage patch is the most widely-researched and well-known example of plastic pollution.
It field is made up of an estimated 3.5million tonnes of plastic bottles, grocery bags and other plastics, pushed together by water currents circulating between the west coast of the U.S. and the east coast of China.
Five ocean gyres - whirlpools or water that moves in a circular, rotational current over a vast distance - trap pollution, drawing in plastic rubbish.
Because the gyres are trafficked by heavy container ships, the rubbish fields contain larger objects that have often gone overboard, including entire cargo containers.
Researchers have only recently turned their attention to the rubbish tip accumulating in the Indian Ocean.
In 2010 garbage patches, similar to those found in the Pacific, were located at the southern reaches of the ocean.
Australian officials have said a new analysis of radar data by investigators in Kuala Lumpur suggests the Boeing 777 had flown faster and ran out of fuel more quickly than previously estimated
Malaysian Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said while nothing has yet been recovered, he is hopeful of news soon
Hishamuddin Hussin, the face of the Malaysian search mission, hugs a relative of one of the passengers missing on board the Boeing 777
The minister's family accompanied him to visit family members waiting for news at the hotel in Putrajaya
Malaysians are chafing at scathing Chinese criticism over the lost MH370 passenger jet, with fed-up officials, media and citizens now hitting back after being assailed as a nation of incompetent liars and murderers
Other officials have said it could take days for the ship - the Ocean Shield - to reach the search area.
The newly targeted zone is nearly 700 miles north east of sites the searchers have crisscrossed for the past week.
The redeployment came after analysts determined that the Boeing 777 may have been traveling faster than earlier estimates and would therefore have run out of fuel sooner, officials said.
Search planes were sent out today from Perth, Australia, in a staggered manner, so at least one plane will be over the area for most of the daylight hours.
It is also closer than the previous search area, with a flying time of two hours each way, allowing for five hours of search time, according to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.
The Australian statement said five P-3 Orions - three from Australia and one each from Japan and New Zealand - plus a Japanese coast guard jet, the Chinese Ilyushin IL-76, and one civilian jet acting as a communications relay, took part Saturday.
Mr Abbott said the job of locating the debris was still difficult. 'We should not underestimate the difficulty of this work - it is an extraordinarily remote location.'
The area spans about 123,000 square miles, roughly the size of Poland.
In most places, depths range from about 6,560 feet to 13,120 feet, although the much deeper Diamantina trench edges the search area.
The hunt for the plane focused first on the Gulf of Thailand, along the plane's planned path.
But when radar data showed it had veered sharply west, the search moved to the Andaman Sea, off the western coast of Malaysia, before pivoting to the southern Indian Ocean, southwest of Australia.
That change was based on analysis of satellite data. But officials said a reexamination and refinement of that analysis indicated the aircraft was traveling faster than previously estimated, resulting in increased fuel use and reducing the possible distance it could have flown before going down.
Families of those missing on board flight MH370 shout slogans during a protest outside Lido Hotel in Beijing today The sign (right) reads: 'Son, your father's and mother's hearts are broken. Come back quickly'
The protest was also held to thank the overseas Chinese who protested in front of the Malaysian Embassy in London on Thursday
Just as a car loses fuel efficiency when driving at high speeds, a plane will get less out of a tank of fuel when it flies faster.
Relatives and friends of the passengers said they were tortured by the uncertainty over the fate of their loved ones, as they wait for hard evidence that the plane had crashed.
'This is the trauma of maybe he's dead, maybe he's not. Maybe he's still alive and we need to find him. Maybe he died within the first hour of the flight, and we don't know,' Sarah Bajc, the American girlfriend of U.S. passenger Philip Wood, said in an interview in Beijing.
'I mean, there's absolutely no way for me to reconcile that in my heart,' she said.
If investigators can determine the plane went down in the newly targeted zone, recovery of its flight data and cockpit voice recorders could be complicated.
While investigators appear to be focusing on an area where much of the sea floor is about 6,600 feet below the surface, depths may reach a maximum of about 19,700 feet at its easternmost edge, she said.
The protest comes as the search for the Boeing 777 enters a fourth week
Relatives of the missing Chinese passengers have condemned the Malaysian government and its handling of the search mission
As the Malaysian government comes under strong criticism from China, home to more than 150 of the passengers, relatives of the missing have accused the government of 'delays and deception'.
More than 20 Chinese relatives staged a brief protest on Saturday outside the Lido hotel in Beijing where families have been staying for the past three weeks, demanding evidence of the plane's fate.
The peaceful protest came just days after dozens of angry relatives clashed with police after trying to storm the Malaysian embassy.
Many of Saturday's protesters carried slogans demanding the 'truth' about their lost loved ones.
'They don't have any direct evidence,' said Steve Wang, who had a relative on the flight.
'(Their conclusion) is only based on mathematical (analysis) and they used an uncertain mathematical model. Then they come to the conclusion that our relatives are all gone.'
'They're all still alive, my son and everyone onboard! The plane is still there too! They're hiding it,' demonstrator Wen Wancheng, 63, yelled.
His only son, Wen Yongsheng, is a passenger. He held up a banner that read: 'Son, mom and dad's hearts are torn to pieces. Come home soon!'
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