Lost airplane

Perth, Australia (CNN) -- The hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 took on increasing urgency Friday as searchers began scouring the ocean floor and the batteries powering its locator pingers approached the end of their expected lifetimes.

If they die, so too could investigators' best hope of determining what caused the jetliner to vanish from radar screens last month.

Fourteen aircraft and 11 ships were involved in Friday's activities, reported the Australian agency coordinating the search efforts.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority has determined a search area of about 84,000 square miles (218,000 square kilometers), 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) northwest of Perth.

Weather in the area was good, with visibility greater than 6 miles (10 kilometers).Bill Schofield, an Australian scientist who worked on developing flight data recorders, said, "If they do find it, I think it'll be remarkable."

The decision about where in the southern Indian Ocean to focus British and Australian naval ships equipped with sophisticated listening technology was nothing more than an educated guess of where the plane may have hit the water.

On Friday, ships did report sightings of objects, but none were linked to plane debris.

The British Royal Navy survey ship HMS Echo and the Australian naval supply ship Ocean Shield began searching the depths Friday along a single 150-mile (240-kilometer) track, said retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, the head of the Australian agency coordinating the search.

The Ocean Shield is equipped with high-tech gear borrowed from the United States:

• The Towed Pinger Locator 25 contains an underwater microphone to detect pings from the jet's voice and data recorders as deep as 20,000 feet (6,100 meters). It is towed behind a vessel that typically travels at 1 to 5 knots, depending on the water's depth.

"It is a very slow proceeding," said Capt. Mark M. Matthews, director of ocean engineering.

• The Bluefin-21 is an underwater vehicle that can scour the ocean floor for wreckage and can also be used to find mines. It is 16.2 feet long, weighs 1,650 pounds, can work for 25 hours at 3 knots and can operate to a depth of nearly 15,000 feet.

The ocean in the search area is 6,500 feet to 13,000 feet deep.

Since the devices don't require daylight, they can search around the clock.

CNN posted this, few hours ago, can you imagine how the families of this lost persons are feeling? lets continue praying for them.