According to CBS News, the chief of the multinational search for the crash site of the doomed Malaysia Airline Flight 370 plane has conducted a search just off the west coast of Australia after three separate but fleeting sounds had been heard by a Chinese ship and a local ship carrying sophisticated sound equipment. CBS News said that the sounds could have been signals coming from the plane's black boxes, of which could become silent real soon.
Retired Australian Air Chief Marshall Angus Houston, who has coordinated the sea search, told reporters in Perth, "This is an important and encouraging lead, but one which I urge you to treat carefully. What we've got here are fleeting, fleeting acoustic events. ... That's all we've got. It's not a continuous transmission. If you get close to the device, we should be receiving it for a longer period of time than just a fleeting encounter."
Marshall also clarified that the signals picked up by the Chinese and Australian boats have not been verified as signals coming from the airplane, which was supposedly traveling from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing until it disappeared along with its crew and 239 passengers on March 8.
Both the official Xinhua News Agency and Houston said that the patrol vessel Haixun 01 noticed a pulse signal in the southern Indian at 37.5 kilohertz on Friday. CBS News noted that it was the same frequency that is being emitted by the missing plane's flight recorders. The Chinese also stated that the boat's crew saw white objects floating in the sea in the area 1.4 miles off the original signal.
CBS News said that aside from Australia's air forces, the country's Ocean Shield navy carrying high-tech sound detectors from the US Navy will also be heading towards the area where the signal has been noted.
President Liow Tiong Lai of the government coalition party that organized the prayer service on Sunday for the MH370 fatalities, said about the missing plane, "This is not a prayer for the dead because we have not found bodies. This is a prayer for blessings and that the plane will be found."
