5th signal detected 'not likely' from MH370 black boxes, officials say

The most recent acoustic signal detected by an Australian aircraft in the search Thursday is "unlikely to be related to the aircraft black boxes," Australian chief search coordinator Angus Houston said in a statement Friday, CNN reports. "On the information I have available to me, there has been no major breakthrough in the search for MH370," Houston said. "Further analysis continues to be undertaken by Australian Joint Acoustic Analysis Centre." But Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott told reporters in China on Friday that authorities are "very confident" the signals picked up by acoustic detectors are coming from the black box of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, CNN affiliate Sky News Australia reported. It's unclear whether Abbott was referring to four signals detected earlier this week. As planes and boats scoured the Indian Ocean for more signals and signs of wreckage, a senior Malaysian government official and another source involved in the investigation divulged details about the flight to CNN on Thursday, including new information about what radar detected, the last words from the cockpit and how high the plane was flying after it went off the grid. Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared from military radar for about 120 nautical miles after it crossed back over the Malay Peninsula, sources say. Based on available data, this means the plane must have dipped in altitude to between 4,000 and 5,000 feet, a senior Malaysian government official and a source involved in the investigation tell CNN. The dip could have been programmed into the computers controlling the plane as an emergency maneuver, said aviation expert David Soucie. "The real issue here is it looks like -- more and more -- somebody in the cockpit was directing this plane and directing it away from land," said CNN aviation analyst and former National Transportation Safety Board Managing Director Peter Goelz. "And it looks as though they were doing it to avoid any kind of detection." But former U.S. Department of Transportation Inspector General Mary Schiavo was not convinced. She said the reported dip could have occurred in response to a loss of pressure, to reach a level where pressurization was not needed and those aboard the plane would have been able to breathe without oxygen, or to get out of the way of commercial traffic, which typically flies at higher altitudes. That would have been necessary had the plane's transponder been turned off and it lost communications. "If you don't have any communications, you need to get out of other traffic," Schiavo said. "We still don't have any motive and any evidence of a crime yet," she said, adding that most radar can track planes at altitudes below 4,000 feet, so the plane's descent may not have indicated any attempt by whoever was controlling it to hide. She held out hope that the black boxes hold the answers and that they will be found soon. Full story