Search agency says 2 ships to black box to start

The Australian head of the agency searching for the missing Malaysian passenger jet says U.S. Navy equipment will begin its underwater hunt Friday for the jet's black boxes.

The Australian head of the agency searching for the missing Malaysian passenger jet says U.S. Navy equipment will begin its underwater hunt Friday for the jet's black boxes.

Air crews and ships have been searching for weeks for a sign of Flight 370, which went missing on March 8. Angus Houston, the head of a joint agency coordinating the search in the southern Indian Ocean, says a towed pinger locator from the U.S. Navy has been put on the Australian ship the Ocean Shield and will converge with the British HMS Echo.

The Echo already has been searching underwater for the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder. Houston says the ships will search a targeted 240-kilometer (150-mile) track of remote ocean for any pings from the black box.