Photo: The Guardian
There may be hope yet for the relatives of the people that were in the Malaysian flight that disappeared about a month ago on its way to Beijing, China from the capital, Kuala Lumpur. This is because a Chinese vessel which has been helping in the search for Flight MH 370, reported on Saturday that it had picked up a Ping which could well be from the mystery flight.
There has been a huge increase in the number of ships and planes that have joined this increasingly desperate search for this plane that disappeared with two hundred and thirty nine persons on board. One of the two Chinese ships, the Haixun 01, reported that it had picked up a 37.5 kHz pulse which they are hoping is coming from the MH 370 pinger in the flight information recorder or ‘black box’. However, the Chinese state run Xinhua News Agency has cautioned that it has not yet been confirmed that the pings are definitely from the missing plane’s black box.
Commenting on the ‘find’, the head of the Australian search team, said the pulse which was picked up at around 25 degrees South Latitude and 101 east longitude is consistent with the aircraft black box. He, however, hastened to add that there was no confirmation as yet that these were from the missing plane. At this stage, the search is entering a very critical stage as the batteries of the pinger have a lifespan of thirty days and these will be up in a few days.
A lot has happened since the plane disappeared on the morning of Saturday of the eighth of March when the plane which carried 227 passengers and 12 crew members was last heard from. However, what has come out in the open has been that the Malaysian government and aviation department was not prepared in anyway for this kind of tragedy. They have been accused of giving incomplete information and at times completely untrue and contradictory information. They have consequently come under fore from the world in general and the Chinese government in particular as more than one hundred and fifty passengers on the plane were Chinese subjects. This has facilitated the coming to the fore of Australia as the leader of the search. This has been made necessary by the fact that the isolated search area is closest to the Australian subcontinent.
