Chinese Search Ship Discovers Pulse Signal (Ping) in Indian Ocean … Could it Be the Black Box of Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370

Could this finally be the break that searchers needed to find Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.

A Chinese patrol ship, Haixun 01, searching for the missing Malaysian passenger jet MH370 has detected a pulse signal or ping with a frequency of 37.5kHz per second in southern Indian Ocean waters Saturday. This is the similar frequency to that of the pinging emitted by a planes black box. The black box detector deployed by the Haixun 01 picked up the signal at around 25 degrees south latitude and 101 degrees east longitude. However, it is yet to be verified whether this new discovery is related to missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.

Also on Saturday, a Chinese air force plane searching for missing Malaysian passenger jet MH370 spotted a number of white floating objects in the search area.

CNN:

In what may turn out to be a major breakthrough in the month long search for Malaysia Airlines flight 370, a Chinese patrol ship searching the southern Indian Ocean discovered Saturday the pulse signal used by so-called black boxes, state news agency Xinhua reported.

But the pulse signal has not been confirmed, China’s Maritime Search and Rescue Center reported, according to China Communications News, which is the Ministry of Transport’s official newspaper.

Xinhua said a detector deployed by the Haixun 01 patrol ship picked up the signal around 25 degrees south latitude and 101 degrees east longitude. “It is yet to be established whether it is related to the missing jet,” it said.

“It’s not the prime search area, but it’s not out of the question that this could possibly be from the black box,” said David Gallo, who is with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

UPDATE I: Washington Post – Chinese ship hears pulse, possibly from missing Malaysia Airlines flight’s black box.

China’s state-run Xinhua news agency, which has a reporter aboard the Haixun 01 ship, reported that a black box locator heard the signal Saturday at around 25 degrees south latitude and 101 degrees east longitude — broadly in the same area where the search effort has been concentrated in recent weeks, in the Indian Ocean around 1,000 miles northwest of the Australian city of Perth.

The signal was measured at a frequency of 37.5 kilohertz and was repeating at one-second intervals, Xinhua reported.

Anish Patel, president of Florida-based pinger manufacturer Dukane Seacom, told CNN that was the correct frequency for the two emergency location beacons that are built into the plane’s black box flight data recorder and its cockpit voice recorder. He added that it was not a frequency that “readily occurs in nature.”