Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370`s search: As it happened on Monday

Zee Media Bureau/Supriya Jha 04:10 pm: Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 hunt cost runs into millions of dollars The search for the missing Malaysian jet turns out to be the costliest ever with the money searched by the US alone running into millions of dollars. According to a report by the Associated Press, the total cost incurred in MH370 hunt may run into more than millions of dollars as countries such as China have devoted more ships and planes than the Americans have. Last week, the Pentagon had stated that the US military has spent more than $3.3 million on the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 and that nearly double the original $4 million has been kept aside for the hunt. 03:20 pm: "Miracles do happen" In what could give a new lease of life to those hopeful kins of MH370 passengers, Hishammuddin Hussein, Malaysia`s transport minister suggested that the possibility of some survivors being left could not be ruled out, saying "Miracles do happen". "We continue to pray for survivors," he added. Mr Hussein`s hopeful response came after someone questioned if there could be chance that passengers were able to use life rafts in case the plane landed in water. Calling the pulse detection by Australian ship the most promising lead, Mr Hussein said that the Malaysian authorities were "cautiously hopeful" that there would be some positive developments in the "next few days if not hours" to verify whether the pulse signal came from MH370`s black boxes. 01:40 pm: MH370 mystery prompts task force formation on flight tracking ways The mystery over the missing Malaysian jet has set aviation authorities working to explore better flight tracking ways as even after four weeks of plane`s disappearance, the investigators are clueless about the plane. As families criticise the lack of information about the missing plane, the chorus for felicitating real-time satellite tracking of planes is mounting. Hence, an aviation task force has been set up to find better ways of flight tracking and a report in this regard will be made by December, said Tony Tyler, director general of the International Air Transport Association, as per a South China Morning Post report. 12:45 pm: Chinese vessels intensify efforts to locate black box Having provided the much-needed boost to the missing jet hunt by detecting the first signals consistent with aircraft black boxes, Chinese naval vessels have intensified efforts to locate the flight data recorders. After Chinese naval vessel Haixun 01 detected the electronic signal of frequency consistent with that of black box, Australian vessel equipped with a US-Navy supplied towed pinger locator also heard pings, that were said to be black box signals. But nothing has been verified yet as the authorities haven`t yet been able to fix the position of the pinger. 10:40 am: `Black box batteries 1 day past advertised shelf life` JACC chief Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston reminded that the investigators were racing against time in finding the black box as the batteries had already crossed past their shelf life. A battery`s shelf life is said to be 30 days after which the pings start fading. 10:15 am: "Most promising lead so far" Hailing the detection of the signal twice by Australian vessel, search co-ordinator chief Angus Houston called it "the most promising lead so far". The signals “sound just like an emergency locator beacon” and “We are encouraged that we are very close to where we need to be,” he said. However, he cautioned that they hadn`t found any debris yet and were not able to verify the pings heard by the Chinese and Australian ships, so it could take much more time. "We haven`t found MH370 yet, need further confirmation," he said. Mr Houston added that if the vessels managed to fix pinger location, then autonomous underwater vehicles will be deployed. Also, imaging equipment will be used to confirm if there is wreckage, said Houston. He reiterated that it could still take days to verify the pings and they were yet to ascertain where MH370 entered water, said Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston. "Nothing happens fast," he said.

10:10 am: Australian vessel Ocean Shield detects signal twice, once for more than two hours In what seems to be a boost for the search mission, Australian vessel Ocean Shield is said to have detected electronic signals consistent with that of black box pingers, not once but twice. "The towed pinger locator deployed from the Australian defence vessel Ocean Shield has detected signals consistent with those emitted from aircraft black boxes," Angus Houston, the former Australian defence chief said. JACC chief Angus Houston said that the Australian pinger locator detected the signal once for more than two hours(2 hours and 20 minutes). He said that the signal was heard again for 13 minutes after which they couldn`t be recaptured. 9:50 am: JACC holds news conference on pulse signal verification The Joint Agency Coordination Centre is holding a news conference with its chief retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston briefing the media about a fresh signal detected by Australian pinger locator. 9:05 am: MH370`s black boxes pingers were due for overhaul? A US-based pinger manufacturer company has suggested a possibility that the ill-fated plane`s acoustic pingers might have not been replaced, resulting in shortening of the battery life, reports the CNN. A Florida-based pinger manufacturer Dukane Seacom`s head Anish Patel told CNN that his company manufactured the pingers on the Boeing 777-200`s black boxes in late 2005 and late 2006 and those were due for overhauls and new batteries in 2012.  "We have no record of those units ever coming back for a battery replacement," he told CNN. 8:30 am: Today`s search involves 12 planes, 14 ships According to the Joint Agency Coordination Centre, up to nine military planes, three civil planes and 14 ships will be involved in today`s search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. The search area is expected to be approximately 234,000 square kilometres. The JACC added that Australian naval vesel Ocean Shield is continuing investigations in its own search area, while the British naval vessel HMS Echo is on its way to help Chinese ship Haixun 01, which detected pulse signals consistent with the frequency of black box pingers. The weather is expected to be supportive in the search for the missing plane, with few showers likely in the afternoon which would not affect the operations majorly, said the JACC. Investigators are chasing time to locate the black box of the missing Malaysia Airlines jet with only few hours left before the batteries expire. The black box pingers` batteries havde a shelf life of 30 days which completes today.