Nine aircraft and 14 ships were expected to scour the Indian Ocean for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet early Monday (late Sunday ET), Australian authorities said.
In a release, the Australian Joint Agency Coordination Center (JACC), the government group coordinating the painstaking recovery operation, said the search area was set to cover approximately 90,000 square miles northwest of the Australian city of Perth.
Investigators are racing against time to recover the doomed jet's battery-powered black box — the voice and data recorder that may help solve the mystery of why Flight 370 vanished on March 8.
In recent days, searchers hunting for the jet detected three sonic pings that may have been emitted by the black box. The Chinese vessel Haixun 01 detected three separate pulse signals on Friday and again on Saturday. The Australian ship Ocean Shield picked up a signal Sunday.
The British Navy survey ship HMS Echo had arrived Monday to assist the Chinese ship, The Associated Press reported. Ocean Shield was also "continuing investigations in its own area," it said.
