Australian plane detects suspicious signal in MH370 search

A Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) AP-3C Orion aircraft has detected a possible signal in the vicinity of the Australian Defence Vessel Ocean Shield, Angus Houston, Chief Coordinator of the Joint Agency Coordination Center (JACC), confirmed on Thursday. [Special coverage]

Whilst conducting an acoustic search Thursday afternoon, a RAAF AP-3C Orion aircraft has detected a possible signal in the vicinity of the Australian Defence Vessel Ocean Shield, which has detected four signals on Saturday and Tuesday, he said when briefing here the latest development in the multinational search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which went missing on March 8 with 239 on board.

"The acoustic data will require further analysis overnight but shows potential of being from a man-made source," Houston said.

According to JACC figures, the detection of Ocean Shield a few days ago is prompting to narrow Thursday's search area from 75,000 square km to 57,923 km, which lies approximately 2,280 km north west of Perth.

Houston has said that once the search area has been narrowed down, searchers could then find something in a "matter of days."

"Hopefully with lots of transmissions we'll have a tight, small area and hopefully in a matter of days we will be able to find something on the bottom that might confirm that this is the last resting place of MH370," he said.

Up to 14 planes and 13 ships have joined in Thursday's search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 following Wednesday 's "encouraging lead", or the two more signals found by the Ocean Shield.

Except for the search operation on the ocean surface, the underwater search also continued Thursday, with the Ocean Shield at the northern end of the defined search area, and Chinese ships Haixun 01 and HMS Echo at the southern end.