whips the top off the water and everything is white. >> reporter: now, of course, for this equipment to work, you need to have a smaller search area than what we have right now. right now, the ships that are out there are searching an area the size of poland, but the underwater, giant underwater microphone, that pinger locator can only hear a signal about a mile radius around it. so, it's really not going to do much good unless we get a better idea of where the wreckage might be, christine. >> will, thanks so much. will ripley for us off the coast of western australian. >> the ship has a very important mission, but a mission that isn't yet applicable until they find debris and can narrow down the search zone. that's the problem. >> so frustrating. our breaking news conference on the search for missing malaysian airlines flight 370 continues with more team coverage right after the break.