Flight 370 for the day

The BBC has an article about the latest:

Australian co-ordinators in the search for the missing Malaysian plane say a Chinese ship has detected a pulse signal for a second time, within hours of it being heard earlier on Saturday. Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston called the discovery in the southern Indian Ocean an "important and encouraging lead". He warned that the data were still unverified.
British naval ship HMS Echo is sailing to the area to investigate further. It is expected to arrive in the early hours of Monday.
Given that not a single piece of debris from the missing plane has been found, it would be remarkable if the Chinese ship had managed to stumble across signals from the black box flight recorder without any real idea of where the plane crashed. Some will ask whether the Chinese know more than they are letting on. But, at this stage, Australian officials are urging caution. They seem encouraged by the fact that signals were apparently picked up on two consecutive days just a few kilometers apart. But they are stressing there could be many such leads in the coming days that come to nothing. Australian aircraft were also on their way, Air Chief Marshal Houston told reporters. Australian naval vessel Ocean Shield would be heading to the latest search area once it had investigated a third acoustic detection elsewhere. Both HMS Echo and ADV Ocean Shield have technology able to detect underwater signals emitted by data recorders.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared on 8 March 2014 with 239 people on board. Investigators believe it crashed in the Indian Ocean although no confirmed debris has been found. The battery-powered signal from the "black box" recorders fades after thirty days.
After confirming details of the first pulse detected on Saturday which had "characteristics consistent with" an aircraft's flight recorder, Air Chief Marshal Houston told a news briefing at Pearce Air Base near Perth of a second signal. "Saturday afternoon Perth time, there was another acoustic detection less than two kilometers from the original." The second signal lasted about ninety seconds, he said. The signal detected by Haixun 01 (photo) reportedly had the same frequency as those emitted by flight recorders
The search co-ordinator insisted the latest developments should be treated as unverified "until such time as we can provide an unequivocal determination. We are working in a very big ocean and within a very large search area, and so far since the aircraft went missing we have had very few leads which allow us to narrow the search area," he said. "I assure you that we will follow up and exhaust every credible lead that we receive."
A dozen military aircraft and 13 ships are already searching three areas about two thousand kilometers north-west of the Australian city of Perth.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said earlier that he was "hopeful, but by no means certain" that the signal detected on Saturday was linked to missing Flight MH370.
Haixun 01 picked up the first so-called "ping" signal at about 25 degrees south latitude and 101 degrees east longitude, state-run Xinhua news agency said. The signal reportedly had a frequency of 37.5kHz, the same as that emitted by the flight recorders. Three people on board the boat were said to have heard the pings, which were not recorded as they came suddenly. Xinhua also reported that a Chinese military plane had spotted a number of white floating objects about ninety kilometers away a few hours earlier.
Flight MH370 disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing four weeks ago.
Malaysia earlier announced it had set up three ministerial committees to help co-ordinate the search, and a new investigation team which would include members from Australia, China, the US, the UK, and France.

Rico says there's still hope, but why do Chinese ships look so furrin? (And, given the frequency of the problem, why don't they put a bigger battery in the damn box to make it ping longer?)