马航失联航班搜索工作从空中转到水下

Australia began an underwater search of the southern Indian Ocean for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 using military hardware from U.S. and U.K. Navies, despite repeated air sorties that have so far failed to find any wreckage from the missing plane.

尽管到目前为止，反复出动的飞机都未能找到马来西亚航空(Malaysia Airlines) 370航班的任何残骸，但澳大利亚已经开始用美国和英国海军提供的军用设备在印度洋南部进行水下搜索。

Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, who is coordinating the multinational search off the coast of Australia, said the Australian defense vessel Ocean Shield and HMS Echo would cover a 240 kilometer area of ocean where authorities think the plane is most likely to have gone down. Ocean Shield is equipped with a U.S. device designed to detect signals from the aircraft's black box flight recorders deep below the ocean surface. HMS Echo is a U.K. military survey vessel able to profile ocean depths.

负责协调多国搜救行动的澳大利亚空军上将休斯敦(Angus Houston)说，澳大利亚军舰“海洋之盾”号(Ocean Shield)和英国海军“回声”号将在有关部门认为最可能是飞机触海地点的方圆240公里海域进行搜索。“海洋盾号”配备了美国提供的一种装备，可以探测飞机黑匣子在深海发出的信号。“回声号”是英国的一艘军用测量船，可以对海底进行测绘。

The former Australian defense chief said investigators were reaching the end of their analysis of radar data and satellite communications from the plane.

曾担任澳大利亚国防军司令的休斯敦说，调查人员对雷达数据和飞机发出卫星通讯信号的分析已经接近完成。

'I think we have probably got to the end of the process of analysis. My expectation is we're into a situation where the data we've got is the data we've got, and we'll proceed on the basis of that,' he said.

他说，他本人认为数据分析可能已经进入尾声，有关部门将在这些数据的基础上来继续下一步行动。