Next two days 'crucial' in search for MH370

Malaysian acting Transport Minister Hussein said on Saturday that the next two days will be "very crucial" as the search area for the missing flight MH370 has been narrowed.[Special coverage]

The autonomous underwater vehicle Bluefin-21 Hishammudin will complete its scanning of the key area of the seabed in the southern Indian Ocean next week, but the search operation will continue, he told a press conference.

Hishammudin said other approaches would be considered, including widening the scope of search and utilizing assets that could be relevant to the search.

He denied media reports that it would take six weeks to two months to scan the seabed in the search.

"This is incorrect. The immediate search area that the Bluefin- 21 is now scouring should be completed within the next week," he said.

All efforts would be intensified for the next few days with regards to the underwater search, he added.

As to reports indicating Malaysia and Australia were expected to sign an agreement specifying who would handle the wreckage and black box if they were recovered, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, director-general of Department of Civil Aviation, said the agreement was still in the drafting process and could not reveal any detail of it.

"Once we have sorted out the details with Australia, we should be able to give more details to the media," he said.