by Akan Ido

A Royal navy ship has arrived in the southern Indian Ocean to verify signals Chinese officials believe could lead to missing flight MH370.

According to reports, three ‘fleeting sounds’ have been picked up in the multi-national search currently being conducted 1,000 miles off Australia’s west coast.

At least one of those sounds is believed to have a similar frequency to that given off by a black box.

Daily Mail reports:

HMS Echo, one of Britain’s most sophisticated hydrographic vessels, is racing against time to determine whether the sounds were signals from the plane’s black box as the batteries powering the device are expected to run out in the next few days.

But first it will have to conduct an ‘environmental search’ to differentiate between the ocean’s sounds and the potential finding.

Australia’s HMS Ocean Shield is also in the vicinity, investigating a third sound detected nearby.

A graphic showing the search area off the west coast of Australia. Three ‘fleeting’ signals have been detected in the region over the past three days

 

A Chinese Ilyushin IL-76s aircraft at Perth international airport shortly before joining the search operation

Three separate sounds were recorded 5.6 miles deep in the southern Indian Ocean today.

The finding, more than a month after the plane went missing, has been tipped as an ‘important and encouraging’ lead.

Two of the pings were detected by Chinese vessel Haixun 01 within a small patch of the 84,000-square-mile search zone. A third ‘acoustic event’ was picked up in a different area by an Australian ship, officials said.

Those leading the search for the plane are insisting the detection of the sounds ‘does not confirm or deny the presence of the aircraft locator on the bottom of the ocean.’