Malaysia: 'We will not give up search for MH370'

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PERTH - Malaysia vowed Saturday that it would not give up on trying to find the missing jetliner and announced details of a multinational investigation team to solve the aviation mystery, as the search for the plane entered its fifth week.

Military and civilian planes, ships with deep-sea searching equipment and a British nuclear submarine scoured a remote patch of the southern Indian Ocean off Australia's west coast, in the increasingly urgent hunt for debris and the "black box" recorders that hold vital information about Malaysia Airlines Flight 370's last hours.

After weeks of fruitless looking, officials face the daunting prospect that sound-emitting beacons in the flight and voice recorders will soon fall silent as their batteries die after sounding electronic "pings" for a month.

Hishammuddin Hussein, Malaysia's defense minister and acting transport minister, told reporters in Kuala Lumpur that the cost of mounting the search was immaterial compared to providing solace for the families of those on board by establishing what happened.

"I can only speak for Malaysia, and Malaysia will not stop looking for MH370," Hishammuddin said.

The Boeing 777 disappeared March 8 while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people aboard. So far, no trace of the jet has been found.

At the media briefing, Hishammuddin announced that an independent investigator would be appointed and three main areas of inquiry would be pursued. One team will look at airworthiness, including maintenance, structures and systems; another will examine operations, such as flight recorders and meteorology; and a third will consider medical and human factors.

The overall investigation team will include officials and experts from Australia - which as the nearest country to the search zone is currently heading the hunt, with other nations' help - as well as China, the United States, Britain and France, Hishammuddin said.

A multinational team is desperately trying to find debris floating in the water or faint sound signals from the recorders that could lead them to the missing plane and unravel the mystery of its fate.

Finding floating wreckage is key to narrowing the search area, as officials can then use data on currents to backtrack to where the plane hit the water, and where the flight recorders may be.

Beacons in the black boxes emit "pings" so they can be more easily found, but the batteries only last about a month.