Australian authorities searching for the missing Malaysian airliner are diverting planes and ships to the site of a Chinese report of pulsed signals, similar to those which might be transmitted by aircraft flight recorder.
The head of the joint search effort, Retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, says the British ship and Australian ships towing hydrophones will join the Chinese vessel, Haixun 01.
Chinese ship Haixun 01 is reported to have detected a pulse signal. Photo: AFP
He says the Chinese have reported the signal has been briefly detected twice, but there is still no confirmation it is connected with the missing plane.
The first detection was on Friday, and the second signal was heard on Saturday, for just 90 seconds.
The water at the new search site is over 4000 metres deep.
China's Xinhua news agency said a pulse signal picked up by a black box detector on the vessel Haixun 01 had a frequency of 37.5kHz - identical to the emergency beacon signal emitted by flight recorders.
The ship picked up the signal on Saturday at about 25 degrees south latitude and 101 degrees east longitude - about 1500km northwest of Perth. State-run Xinhua news agency said it was yet to be established whether it is related to the missing jet.
Chinese television reporters aboard the Haixun 01 said crews had briefly detected a similar signal on Friday.
Australian navy ship HMAS Ocean Shield is using a "towed pinger locator" to search for the missing black box. Photo: AFP / Australia Defence / Leut Kelly Lunt
The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 vanished on 8 March en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, triggering an international search across huge expanses of first the South China Sea and now the Indian Ocean. Dozens of ships and planes have joined the search, with the operation moving into its most intensive phase before batteries on the data recorders fade.
Australian authorities leading the multinational search in seas off the country's west coast advised caution over Saturday's development, AFP reports.
The head of Australia's search coordination centre, Angus Houston, said in a statement that a number of white objects were spotted about 90 kilometres from the detection area, but there was no confirmation that either were related to the missing aircraft.
China's Liberation Daily reported that three people on board had heard the signals, which were not recorded as they came suddenly.
The Chinese vessel is equipped not only with a black-box search instrument, but also a helicopter, robotic submersible, and sonar equipment.
Two other ships, Australia's defence vessel Ocean Shield and Britain's HMS Echo, were also actively hunting the "pings" from the plane's fight recorders.
Meanwhile, Malaysia has announced its government is launching a multi-national independent investigation into the missing Malaysian airliner which disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board and is believed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean.
Transport minister Hishamuddin Hussein said the new independent investigation team would include representatives from Australaia, China, the United States, Britain and France.
