The month-long hunt for the missing Malaysian plane continued today after a Chinese ship reported the detection of electronic pulse signals possibly related to the black box of the flight MH370 in southern Indian Ocean.

Some 10 military planes, two civil jets and 13 ships will look for any trace of flight MH370 aided by good weather with a cloud base of 2,500 feet and visibility greater than 10 km, according to the Joint Agency Coordination Center coordinating the operations, China’s state—run Xinhua news agency reported.

The search area is approximately 216,000 square km, about 2,000 km northwest of Perth. It is about 300 km farther from the western coastal city than the area searched on the day before, it said.

Reports overnight that a black box detector deployed by Chinese patrol ship Haixun 01 has detected electronic pulse signals in the Indian Ocean related to MH370 “cannot be verified at this point in time”, the JACC said in a statement.

Chinese patrol ship Haixun 01 had yesterday detected a pulse signal with a frequency of 37.5kHz per second in southern Indian Ocean waters.

The black box detector deployed by the Haixun 01 picked up the signal at around 25 degrees south Latitude and 101 degrees east Longitude.

Also yesterday, a Chinese air force plane spotted a number of white floating objects in the search area.

The plane photographed the objects over a period of 20 minutes after spotting them at 11:05 local time.The detection has been reported to the JACC, the news agency reported.

The Beijing—bound Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 — carrying 239 people, including five Indians, an Indo—Canadian and 154 Chinese nationals — had mysteriously vanished on March 8 after taking off from Kuala Lumpur.

The mystery of the missing plane continued to baffle aviation and security authorities who have so far not succeeded in tracking the aircraft despite deploying hi—tech radar and other gadgets.

Banter keeps up morale among searchers

After more than four hours flying over the vast, featureless Indian Ocean, the quick-fire banter of a New Zealand crew searching for signs of Flight 370 turns philosophical.

“One of my biggest phobias,” says one of the crew over the headset communication system, “is treading water in the middle of the ocean.”

There’s a pause after that, then a lively discussion about how long it’s possible to survive at sea.

The air force crew members, who fly a P-3 Orion turboprop, have been searching for over a week now as part of an international effort to unravel the mystery of the Malaysia Airlines plane that vanished four weeks ago.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Thursday described it as the most difficult search operation ever.

The 12 New Zealanders have the discipline and teamwork that comes with military life, not to mention a slogan: “Ready, resilient, respected.” But they also have a kind of folksiness borne of being a small squadron in a tiny air force.

They’ve developed a reputation around Pearce, the base near Perth where the search planes fly from, as being fun, relaxed and responsible for serving up terrific in-flight food.

That includes freshly roasted meat and sandwiches they toast in two frying pans.

The Orion is nearly 50 years old, although it has been updated many times. Still, it’s nothing like a passenger plane and is filled with rattles and a constant noise that make the headsets necessary.

Their mission can be frustrating at times. The crew doesn’t know exactly what they are looking for, or where they might find it. Most days they’ve spotted objects out in the blue expanse, but so far they’ve turned out to be nothing more than tangled fishing nets or other ocean junk.

“This is the reality of search and rescue and we are used to it,” Flight Lt. Stephen Graham, the tactical coordinator, said yesterday. “You just search and search and search. The only way to do it is to start at the most likely place and go from there.”

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