Malaysian PM: 'According to This New Data, Flight MH370 Ended in S. Indian Ocean'

[LongTomH]

60. From the AP Story.......

On Monday, an Australian navy support vessel, the Ocean Shield, was headed toward the search zone and was expected to arrive in three or four days, a defense official said. The ship is equipped with acoustic detection equipment that can search for the black box.

The U.S. Pacific Command said it is also sending a black box locator in case a debris field is located.

The Towed Pinger Locator, which is pulled behind a vessel at slow speeds, has highly sensitive listening capability that can hear the black box pinger down to a depth of about 20,000 feet (6,100 meters), Cmdr. Chris Budde, a U.S. 7th Fleet operations officer, said in a statement. He called it "a prudent effort to pre-position equipment and trained personnel closer to the search area."

Next step will be to dispatch ships with deep-diving robots to recover the boxes, and ships with side-scan sonar to locate any large pieces of wreckage on the ocean bottom.