Official says sub will be used in search for jet

PERTH, Australia (AP) — Search crews will for the first time send a sub deep into the Indian Ocean to try and determine whether signals detected by sound-locating equipment are from the missing Malaysian plane's black boxes.

Angus Houston, the head of a joint agency coordinating the search off Australia's west coast, said Monday that the crew on board the Ocean Shield will launch the underwater vehicle as soon as possible. The Bluefin 21 autonomous sub can create a sonar map of the area to chart any debris on the seafloor.

The move comes after crews picked up a series of underwater sounds over the past two weeks that were consistent with an aircraft's black boxes.