Free Republic

A Royal navy ship has arrived in the southern Indian Ocean to verify signals Chinese officials believe could lead to missing flight MH370. The three 'fleeting sounds' have been picked up in the multi-national search currently being conducted 1,000 miles off Australia's west coast. At least one of those 'pings' is believed to have a similar frequency to that given off by a black box. HMS Echo, one of Britain's most sophisticated hydrographic vessels, is racing against time to determine whether the sounds were signals from the plane's black box as the batteries powering the device are expected to run...

A Chinese ship searching for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 detected a "pulse signal" in the southern Indian Ocean on Saturday, but there was no evidence yet that it was linked to the missing plane, state media said. The signal picked up by the vessel's black box detector had a frequency of 37.5kHz, the official Xinhua news agency said -- identical to the beacon signal emitted by flight recorders. The announcement came nearly a month after the Malaysian jetliner disappeared off radar screens en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board, triggering an unprecedented international search. Australian...