Malaysia plane: Search for black box intensifies

The crew of a Royal Navy ship are “working 24/7″ to hunt for flight recorders from the missing Malaysian plane, their commander has said.HMS Echo is helping to scour the southern Indian Ocean after Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 vanished with 239 people on board on 8 March.Sonar “pings” were detected last week by search teams – but no new signals have been confirmed since last Tuesday.Cdr Phillip Newell said the search was proving to be “challenging”.Plymouth-based hydrographic survey ship HMS Echo was diverted from gathering data on its way from Oman to the Seychelles to help in the search.The ship, whose specialist equipment has been adapted to pick up signals from the plane’s black box flight recorders, arrived in the search area on Thursday.“I have a brilliant team, young, bright and enthusiastic and we are working 24/7 to cover the sea bed and observe on the surface,” said Cdr Newell.Australian defence vessel Ocean Shield has been using a US Navy towed pinger locator to listen out for signals, which were detected twice last weekend and twice on Tuesday.Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he was confident the signals were from the black box – but on Saturday he warned those signals were “rapidly fading”.