Searchers from six countries are scouring the southern Indian Ocean to recover debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines jet.
The operation is a race against time as investigators scramble to find the doomed flight's "black boxes" — the voice and data recorders that may help officials solve one of the most complex mysteries in aviation history — before ocean currents make recovery impossible.
Here's a snapshot of the military assets and technological tools deployed to date in the search:
The United States
- (1) Navy P-8 Poseidon aircraft
- (1) Navy Towed Pinger Locator (TPL), which can detect a black box "ping"
- (1) Bluefin Robotics Corp. unmanned "mini-sub"
Australia
- HMAS Success, a Royal Australian Navy ship
- (4) Royal Australian Air Force P-3 Orion aircraft
China
- Xue Long ("Snow Dragon"), a polar supply ship
- (2) Ilyushin IL-76 aircraft
Japan
- (1) P-3 Orion aircraft
New Zealand
- (1) Royal New Zealand Air Force P-3 Orion aircraft
South Korea
- (1) P-3 Orion aircraft
A total of five civil aircraft - a Bombardier Global Express, Gulfstream 5 and an Airbus 319, four of them from Australia, one from New Zealand - and six merchant ships are also assisting in the search, according to the Australia Maritime Safety Authority. All the information was correct as of 4 a.m. ET Wednesday.
