Perth: The search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 entered into a new phase with the deployment of a towed pinger locator. The intention of this attempt is to trace out the black box of the ill-fated plane.
Two ships with locator capabilities are searching an area having 240km (150 mile) circumference in a bid to retrieve the data recorder.
But Australia’s search chief has referred the venture as a race against time since the battery-powered signal from the black box fades after 30 days.
The plane was disappeared on 8 March while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing carrying 239 passengers.
The search operations are being carried out on the basis of the assumption that the plane might have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean. No conformed debris of the plane has been recovered till this date. The searches have been coordinating from Perth, the city in Western Australia.
Fourteen aircraft and 11 ships are involved in the current search activities.
A coordination source said that the ships had sighted numerous objects at the area but none were associated with the missing plane.

Video on the functioning of the Pinger Locator