Search for flight MH370 resumes with underwater scan aid

A massive hunt for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 resumed Saturday, the 28th day since it disappeared, with newly-mobilized underwater search effort.[Special coverage]

Up to 10 military planes, three civil jets and 11 ships will join the search for MH370, including Australian navy vessel Ocean Shield and British oceanographic vessel HMS Echo tasked with underwater operations.

An area of about 217,000 square kilometers, 1,700 kilometers northwest of Perth will be scanned with the aid of fair weather conditions, according to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA).

Ocean Shield equipped with a U.S. towed pinger locator and HMS Echo will continue scouring a single 240 kilometer underwater track converging on each other.

The sub-surface search was launched on Friday in an attempt to recover the black box of MH370.

The hi-tech towed pinger locator is capable of picking up emissions from the black box pinger up to 6,100 meter under sea surface while the Echo is fitted with an array of sensors and sidescan sonar for surveying the ocean floor.

The black box contains a pinger with a battery life of about 30 days after a crash.

The MH370 with 239 people on board is believed to have crashed on March 8 in the southern Indian Ocean west of Perth, although no confirmed debris has been found from the plane.

The underwater scan zone has been carefully chosen based on " analysis by the investigative team from five nations of the most likely aircraft track to where the aircraft might enter into the water,"said Angus Houston, chief of the Joint Agency Coordination Center (JACC) leading the search from Perth in Western Australia.

The visual search will go on as it may find wreckage on the surface that would result in the further narrowing down of the search area, Houston said.