A little over a month later, the search for Flight 370 continues and officials state that it could take months, maybe years.

Saturday’s discovery of a pulse signal in the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 marks what could be a potential breakthrough in the plane’s disappearance.  The signals were picked up by the Ocean Shield, an Australian navy ship that is towing a U.S pinger locator northwest of Perth, Australia. The first detection lasted for more than two hours. A second detection lasted for about 13 minutes.  So far, this has been the investigators most promising lead.

What happens if the pingers die? Well, it’s a race against time, because the batteries for the acoustic pingers could run out soon due to the length of time the plane has been missing. Many ask if this is yet another false alarm, and that, it could be.

Everyone wants to know, what is the next step? Well as of right now an underwater search is underway. The officials are warning that they still need further evidence, such as a sighting of wreckage on the seafloor. Another question being asked is do the searchers have enough pings to figure out where they are coming from. No, not yet. The Ocean Shield is slowly towing pinger locators back and forth over the area where it twice picked up a signal. If another signal is picked up, they will deploy an unmanned underwater vehicle that is on board the Ocean Shield, the Bluefin-21. In the event of finding something unusual, the Bluefin-21 will come back to the surface and will be fitted with a camera. The only potential problem with that is the water in the area the Ocean Shield is searching is about 14,800 feet deep, the limit of the Bluefin’s range.

If another signal is not picked up, it could very likely be that the batteries powering the locating beacons have died. If that is not the case, at the very most, they could last another week or so.

The mystery still continues and the families still mourn and yearn for answers, but officials are doing everything they possibly can to comfort those families and come up with answers to this strange disappearance.