MMEA director-general Hamid Amin said this time, the search would focus on a 50m to 100m radius around the location of the black box, based on the signal from the pinger.

He said according to information from the navy’s National Hydrographic Centre (PHN), the black box is believed to be around 700m to 800m from the helicopter’s emergency landing site.

“According to the report received, the divers are having difficulty finding the black box due to the strong currents on the seabed, in addition to limited visibility in the water due to the muddy seabed.

“However, the agency is positive that the black box will be found soon,” he said in a statement today.

According to Hamid, in addition to MMEA’s divers, the search mission also involves the PHN sonar crew, the Air Accident Investigation Bureau and MMEA’s aircraft service provider, Galaxy (M) Sdn Bhd.

“The first phase of the search for the plane’s black box was carried out from March 6 to 24, with the focus location being around a kilometre radius in the area where the helicopter involved made the emergency landing,” he said.