MH370 search zone ‘size of Victoria’

A black box locator is about to be sent out on an Australian navy ship in search of the missing MH370 plane.

RECOVERING Flight MH370 debris from a search area the size of Victoria is "critical" to finding the black box flight recorder before its locator ping fades away, the officer in charge of the sea and air mission said.

Commodore Peter Leavy, commander of Joint Task Force 658, said the black box's beacon locator – which emits a high frequency ping noise every second – is certified to last another nine days.

It's hoped the battery may last "a little while longer" than April 7 — next Monday — but search crews are in a race against clock before the beacon runs flat and its signal stops.

■ ROLLING COVERAGE: Search continues for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370

Commodore Peter Leavy, commander of the Joint Task Force 658, said the black box's beacon locator is certified to last another nine days. Picture: Stewart Allen

Commodore Leavy said finding the black box, which records flight data and voices in the cockpit, was crucial to helping air crash investigators determine what caused the Malaysia Airlines aircraft to veer off course and crash in the southern Indian Ocean.

"In the circumstances that we are facing here, if the black box is recovered and the data is salvageable, I think that will be a very, very important part of the analysis of the subsequent investigation," he said.

Commodore Leavy said the "unprecedented" multinational mission was searching an area the size of the state of Victoria in "extreme" ocean conditions.

Royal Australia Air Force crew at RAAF Base Pearce in Bullsbrook unload a Australian Sea Hawk helicopter to join a Royal Australian Navy ship to search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in the Indian Ocean, on March 28, 2014. Picture: AFP

He said it was "critical" debris from the Kuala Lumpur-Beijing flight was confirmed to help investigators pinpoint where the jet crashed.

Only when a location is identified, using modelling to estimate how far the debris drifted, can a US Navy device designed to find black boxes be effective.

Australian Defence patrol vessel Ocean Shield is due to dock tonight at HMAS Stirling naval base on Garden Island, south of Perth, to join the search.

HMAS Toowoomba in dock at WA's Garden Island before joining search for MH370 debris. Picture: Stewart Allen

It will tomorrow be fitted with a Towed Ping Locator and Bluefin-21 underwater drone which uses sonar to scan the sea floor for signs of wreckage.

Ocean Shield is expected to set sail on Monday and take two to three days to reach the search zone, 1850km west of Perth, depending on the weather.

It means the crew and air crash investigators would likely arrive at the search zone on Thursday or Friday, just three or four days before the ping is due to start fading.

HMAS Toowoomba in dock at WA's Garden Island before joining search for MH370 debris. Picture: Stewart Allen

The pinger locator, which has a reach of about 2km, is towed underwater at a "very slow" two to three knots (5kmp/h) and covers less than 150 square kilometres a day.

"The critical focus at this juncture is to find debris and as much of it as we can. If it is confirmed to be from the aircraft that will enable a much greater refinement of the impact point," Commodore Leavy said.

"Having as accurate a start point as we can for our pinger search is critical."

HMAS Toowoomba today reloaded at Garden Island after it was retasked to the MH370 search from Operation Sovereign Border duties in Darwin.

Five specialist divers, as well as a Sea Hawk helicopter, joined the frigate's 180-strong crew to search for floating debris. HMAS Toowoomba should reach the search zone on Monday.

Warship HMAS Toowoomba docking at Garden Island before joining search for MH370 debris. Must credit photo Stewart Allen Source: News Limited

Christopher Johnson, of the US Naval Sea Systems Command, confirmed the pinger locator won't be deployed until there was a higher confidence about where MH370 went down.

Dr Alec Duncan, an expert in underwater acoustics at Curtin University, added: "They've got to find stuff on the surface first – until they do that there's really no point trying to look underwater."

Dr Duncan said they would need to get as close as possible to the beacon to limit other background noises, such as whales, masking the ping.

"The ocean's actually a very noisy place," he said. "It depends largely on weather conditions as to how much background noise there is. The calmer it is, the less there will be."

Dr Duncan said if the aircraft fuselage remains intact on the sea floor then other sonar systems, such as the Bluefin-21, could be more effective as they have a greater range.

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