The Race To Find Malaysian Airlines MH370

The search for the missing Malaysian Airline's black box involves a staggering array of sophisticated ships, aircraft and equipment, with eight countries contributing 17 vessels and 19 aircraft – including British nuclear submarine HMS Tireless.
It looked like the scale of the operation had paid off, with reports that the flight recorder had been located deep in the Indian Ocean.
Perth radio station 6PR tweeted the discovery, citing aviation expert Geoffrey Thomas, who revealed the flight recorder had finally been found more than a month after the Boeing 777 went missing
Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who is in China, said searchers are 'very confident' the signals detected were from the black box from MH370, which mysteriously vanished as it flew from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing with 239 people on board on March 8.
'We have very much narrowed down the search area [to the southern Indian Ocean]...and we are very confident the signals are from the black box from MH370,' said Mr Abbott. 'We have a series of detections, some lasting for quite a long period of time.
'We're now getting to the stage from where the black box is starting to fade. We're hoping to get as much information as we can before the signal finally expires.

'I really don't want to give any more information than that at this stage...as a sign of respect to the Chinese people and their families.'.
Speaking from Shanghai, China, Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott added that today's discovery was a huge step in solving the mystery - and even claimed that officials believe they can now pinpoint the position of the missing black box flight recorder to ‘within some kilometres’.
'This is probably the most difficult search in human history,' he said. 'Among tragedy, however, there is hope. We are confident we know the position of the black box to the nearest kilometre.

The planned search area in the Indian Ocean, west of Australia, for the wreckage of flight MH370 on Friday April 11,2014

Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orion conducts a low level fly-by before dropping supplies to Australian Navy ship HMAS Toowoomba as they continue to search for MH370 on Friday April 11,2014

The Australian Defense vessel Ocean Shield tows a pinger locator in the first search for the missing flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder

Search crews are racing against time because the batteries powering the devices' locator beacons last only about a month - and more than a month has passed since the plane disappeared.
Finding the black boxes after the batteries fail will be extremely difficult because the water in the area is 4,500 meters (15,000 feet) deep.
The Australian ship Ocean Shield is towing a U.S. Navy device that detects black box signals, and two sounds it heard last Saturday were determined to be consistent with the signals emitted from aircraft flight recorders. Two more sounds were detected in the same general area on Tuesday - just days before the fifth ping was detected yesterday. 

Complicating matters is the depth of the seabed in the search area. The signals are emanating from 4,500 metres(15,000 feet) below the surface, which is the deepest the Bluefin can dive. The search coordination center said it was considering options in case a deeper-diving sub is needed. 

HMS Echo, which has joined the search for the black box

Royal New Zealand Air Force flying a P-3 Orion during the MH370 search

China's People's Liberation Army Navy Liaison Officer Commander Lin Wan, transits from the Luyang II class Guided Missile Destroyer Haikou (DDG-171) to board the Australian Navy ship HMAS Success as they continue to search in the Indian Ocean for missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370

Malaysia's opposition coalition has demanded a parliamentary inquiry into what happened on the ground in those first few hours. Government officials have said any formal inquiry should not begin until the flight's black box recorders are found.