Time running out for MH370 search – experts
April 1, 2014, 7:19 pm

China has told relatives of those on board MH370 to accept that their loved ones are likely dead [Xinhua]

Meanwhile, debris spotted on Sunday and Monday in the southern Indian Ocean by Australian rescue aircraft turned out to be parts of discarded fishing equipment.

But search efforts are ongoing.

On Tuesday, an Australian Navy ship carrying precise black box detection equipment was dispatched to the search area.

But the Ocean Shield, which is carrying a specialised towed pinger locator and an underwater vehicle, won’t reach the designated area until Friday.

So far, 10 aircraft and 10 naval vessels from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China, South Korea, the United States and Malaysia have been combing thousands of square kilometers of water for three weeks.

Constant reports of debris come up empty.

Meanwhile, families of those on board MH370 are continuing to pressure Kuala Lumpur to be more forthcoming about what happened.

On Tuesday, Malaysian authorities corrected the last message from the plane to be “Good night, Malaysian 370” instead of the previously reported “All right, good night”.

Last week, Chinese authorities demanded that Malaysia provide evidence that the Boeing 777 MH370 airliner crashed in the Indian Ocean after Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Rajak said the plane had “ended” there.

But on Monday, Beijing told grieving relatives to accept that all those on board MH370 were likely dead and to stop lashing out at the Malaysian authorities handling the investigation.

MH370 was carrying 239 passengers: 153 Chinese citizens, 38 Malaysians, 12 Indonesians, 7 Australians, 4 Americans, 1 Russian and crew.

Source: Agencies