degrees of over statement. but in this case in terms of the pings, there were a couple of red flags that were raised. one was that one of the pings that they picked up was 17 miles from the other three pings. you re not quite sure what that meant. and that also the pings that were being generated which were at a different megahertz than what the black boxes were supposed to produce. so there were a couple of red flags that might have been caution naur. but there was no question. they had to do this search. and as mary said, they have to do it to its completion. thanks so much to all of you. appreciate it. thank you. search crews have been spending long hours searching the indian ocean mile by mile. and in a minute we ll take you aboard one of those search planes as they try to find any trace of flight 370.
continues with our world lead, the hunt for flight 370 is now focused three miles beneath the waves of the indian ocean but that does not mean that search planes have given up. cnn s own miguel marquez is joining us. day in and day out, is there any sense of fatigue among the aerial search crews? reporter: there is fatigue but they are certainly not giving up. this is a p-3 from the new zealand royal air force that we have flown. the captain has flown some 30 flights. they are searching hundreds of miles from where the bluefin is diving. they have enough fuel for about an hour and and a half of searching and then it s a five-hour flight home. here s what the captain has said about the frustration. there must be a level of
now, that would be significant if they did find it because that s actually where those four pings in that general area. very significant. the very specific kind of oil used in aircraft, not used in ships typically or anything else. it s in aircraft and hydraulic fluid as well. that would tell a lot of tales about it. then thirdly you have fuel mixed with it probably if it s with that aircraft. they should be able to determine relatively quickly if in fact that oil came from the plane. yeah, they should be able to. that s not that complicated. it isn t. i don t know about the search planes if they drop fuel sometimes but they shouldn t. not oil like that. they should be able to figure that out if it came from a 77 which probably has they could see it was fueled up in kuala lumpur, they might be able to get a match. so take us through this next phase. they assume the batteries for the black boxes are dead, so
reporters today his confidence remains high despite the many challenges. tony abbott described a multinational search as a massive, massive task. and the search planes, they re at it again. they re up in the air again departing from perth in western australia. today marks day 37, 37 days since malaysia airlines flight 370 vanished. live now to perth, australia, cnn s michael holmes. michael, the prime minister tony abbott says he is still confident about the search. what about the search crews, do they share that optimism? well, they share a determination to keep on going. i think it s fair to say, don. optimism about finding wreckage now certainly on the surface, boy, that s got to be wearing thin. i mean, just imagine, we re into the sixth week now and they still haven t found one piece of wreckage. they are continuing to tow that ping locator on the ocean shield vessel and that smaller search area. smaller than it s been.
patience has already run out long ago is the families of those on board the airliner. a group of families met again with airline and malaysian officials, the mother of a missing passenger is not happy. she says they keep telling her the same thing. nothing useful. it s still an hour and a half until sunrise in perth, western australia, that s when search planes will take off once again on this the 37th day since flight 370 took off from malaysia and vanished. we ll go straight to perth and cnn s michael holmes. he s there. what can we expect when the sun comes up? we re getting a sense and i think our viewers are probably getting a sense as well that we re settling into a long, slow period in this search now. reporter: yeah. you re absolutely right, jim. yeah, those planes will be taking off in the next couple of hours. the first ones are normally the chinese planes. they re the ones that take off from perth airport and australian and new zealand planes will take off. of course, the