Malaysian PM to visit Perth as MH370 search grinds on

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is to visit the western Australian port city of Perth on Wednesday over the ongoing search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, as both Malaysia and Australia vowed not to give up till the mystery is solved.  [Special coverage]

"As I promised the families that Malaysia, working with our international partners, will not give up hope. We will continue with all our efforts to find MH370," acting Transport Minister Hishamuddin Hussein said at a press conference.

He said that a Malaysian warship and a Australian ship, which is fitted with a black box detector and an autonomous underwater vehicle, are due to reach the search area Thursday.

In addition, Hussein will travel to the US for discussions on the search mission among other subjects.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott also said that the search had no time limit and Australia is working with all available resources on all possible leads in the search and they pledged to get to the bottom of the MH370 mystery.

If it is solvable, "we will solve it," Abbott said.

Search work faces a race against the clock to locate the plane as the black box signal may disappear on April 8.

However, an Australian scientist reckoned the search might never find the black box.

The tragedy has highlighted the limitations of the cockpit voice and flight data recorders, Bill Schofield, who worked as a researcher for the black box inventor in the 1960s, told the Xinhua News Agency on Monday.

"All they are today are a computer with a hard disc that records an enormous amount of information - just about all the information you could possibly think of on an aeroplane is recorded on them," he said.

Some Chinese passengers' relatives Monday visited a Buddhist temple near Kuala Lumpur to pray for their loved ones. Malaysian government will hold a high-level briefing for families of MH370 passengers, said the minister, adding that international experts will present the updates of the search.