KUALA LUMPUR, March 26 ― Three days ― that is the estimated time that the US Navy’s “black box finder” will likely have to locate MH370’s two crucial data recorders, which will likely stop emitting signals sometime around April 7 when their battery lives runs out.

According a Twitter posting on Malaysia’s US Embassy’s account today, the US Navy’s “black box finder” finally arrived in Perth earlier this morning.

The Towed Pinger Locator 25 (TPL-25) will be attached to the Australian ship Ocean Shield by this Friday before it sets out on the search but is expected to only reach the designated zone on April 5, according to acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein yesterday.

But the effort will be a painstaking one, according to 7th fleet operation officer Chris Budde, because the vessel towing the TPL-25 must move very slowly in order to pick up signals from the aircraft’s black boxes ― crucial items for investigators to determine what happened inside the airplane that led to its crash.

“This movement is simply a prudent effort to preposition equipment and trained personnel closer to the search area so that if debris is found we will be able to respond as quickly as possible since the battery life of the black box's pinger is limited,” Budde was quoted in the US navy’s official website as saying.

According to the website, the TPL-25 is designed to locate black boxes of downed navy and commercial aircraft in areas as deep as 20,000 feet.

The black box finder also carries a listening device that detects pingers, which commercial aircraft usually installs directly on the flight recorder, and automatically transmits an acoustic pulse.

Once an audible signal is transmitted through the cable can be processed by the computer, an operator will monitor the strongest signal strength and record the navigation coordinates.

The procedure will be repeated on multiple track lines until a final position is shown, the website explained.

Last week, the Australian maritime authority released satellite images of two indistinct “blobs” in the southern Indian Ocean, some 2, 500km off Western Australia, which prompted Malaysia and other countries to narrow its search effort to the Southern Corridor.

More similar sightings were reported in the days that followed, including satellite images and reports from search planes scouring the watery expanse.

Malaysian Lieutenant General Ackbal Samad shows a map showing possible track of Malaysia Airlines MH370 to relatives of passengers aboard the missing plane, during a briefing by the Malaysian government at the Lido Hotel in Beijing March 26, 2014. ― Reuters pic

Earlier today, Hishammuddin announced that French satellites revealed more potential sightings of MH370 debris, this time 122 of them that were spotted within the search radius.

He told a press conference here that the debris field was within 400 square kilometres and showed some “bright” objects, which could indicate that they are “solid material” from the missing aircraft.

“We cannot tell if they are from MH370. Nevertheless, this is another new lead that will help direct the search operation,” he said.

Hishammuddin explained that the images had come from the Airbus Defence and Space based in France and were taken on March 23.

The objects captured in the images ― which were first handed over to the Malaysian Remote Sensing Agency (MRSA) ― were of various sizes and estimated to measure around 1m for smaller objects and up to 23m in length for the larger objects.

Hishammuddin said the area is some 2,567km off of Perth, Australia, and the authorities have managed to figure out the coordinates of the objects seen in the latest satellite images.