(Reuters) — A Chinese Ilyushin IL-76 aircraft returned to Perth International airport on Sunday (April 13) to resume the search for debris from the missing Malaysian airliner as efforts continue to home in on the aircraft’s black box flight recorders.
Sunday’s search consisted of the P8 Poseidon and 10 other aircraft along with 14 ships, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said.
The air and sea search continues trying to narrow the underwater search area for the deployment of the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle.
The acoustic search for tell tale signals from the black box flight recorders involves the Australian Defence Vessel Ocean Shield, AP-3C Orion aircraft and the oceanographic ship HMS Echo.
Sunday’s search is bigger than Saturday’s measuring 57,506 square kilometres (22,200 square miles) approximately 2200 kilometres (1370 miles) north west of Perth AMSA said.
Search officials say they are confident they know the approximate position of the black box recorder, although they have determined that the latest “ping’, picked up by searchers on Thursday (April 10), was not from the missing aircraft.
