search crews find the heavier pieces of the aircraft and eventually bring that up. also we talked about the black boxes, i could tell you, carol, right now focused on lifting that debris from the ocean surface but quickly the focus will turn to the black boxes because that holds a lot of critical answers that tow pinger he mentioned that is here in the united states would be very helpful in picking up those pings. remember 30 days roughly before that pinging sound stops. is there a chance those black boxes will be brought to the united states for analysis? we re been in contact with the ntsb this morning. at this point they re still in what they call a monitoring phase. they are watching everything that is unfolding. we do know that two french investigators from the french equivalent of the ntsb already on the ground there in the region. because this aircraft is a french product, french manufactured aircraft it would
transmission is probably the most promising one. and we continue to prosecute that to find out exactly what we re dealing with. we need another transmission to better refine the area, and then we need to go down, have a look, and find confirming evidence that that s where the aircraft is. and i can t stress i can t stress that enough. now, in terms of the environment, we can t have too many ships in the area, because when you re dealing with these transmissions, you need utter silence. it becomes a very noisy environment if you suddenly have several ships around there or aircraft dropping things in the water. we need to let ocean shield continue its work with the tow pinger to try to find another transmission from whatever is down there.
continue its work with the tow pinger to try to find another transmission from whatever is down there. [ inaudible question ] they were they sounded like an emergency as i said yesterday, an emergency locator beacon. so that s part of the evidence. that s why we are so excited about it. we re very hopeful that we will find further evidence, which will confirm that the aircraft is in that location. [ inaudible question ]
trigger at the moment to launch the underwater vehicle with accurate sonar and camera for mapping and looking at the ocean floor. but at the moment that is not the ploy the focus is on trying to reacquire the acoustic signals they had 24 hours ago. in terms of area, the, by the end of tomorrow when completing their runs they expect to have a three by three mile box searched so it s quite a small area searched very thoroughly. it s a very small area. that gives hopes a sense of challenges they re facing out there. keep in mind each of the runs that they conduct is around seven miles long. we have a turn at the end. it takes 7 or 8 hours to do each leg and turn. they need to steady on the new course and allowed tow pinger to settle down. it s a slow process we have the best in the world
right now a british navy survey ship in the area of the indian ocean where a chinese ship detected underwater signals. this could be a lead for flight 370. there s serious concern about the equipment that detected the pulses. here is cnn s report. reporter: we now know more about the equipment used when the pinging sound was reportedly detected. we spoke to the company that makes it. they tell us divers can use it or it can be used hand-held from the surface like the chinese are doing in this video. clearly this hydrophone does not go as deep as the tow pinger. remember, the tow pinger is what crews are using on board australia ship ocean shield.