New signals revive confidence in MH370 search

[PERTH] Australian officials said yesterday two new "ping" signals had been detected in the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, boosting confidence after more than a month of fruitless searching for the missing jetliner.

The signals, which could be from the plane's black box recorders, bring to four the number of overall "pings" detected in recent days within the search area by a US Navy "Towed Pinger Locator" (TPL).

Angus Houston, head of the Australian agency coordinating the search, struck an optimistic tone when announcing the information, but urged caution as the task of searching the remote Indian Ocean region remained enormous.

"I believe we are searching in the right area but we need to visually identify aircraft wreckage before we can confirm with certainty that this is the final resting place of MH370," Mr Houston told reporters in Perth. "I'm now optimistic that we will find the aircraft, or what is …