Australian assets en route to site

A merchant ship that responded to a broadcast from the Rescue Coordination Centre (RCC) on Monday will arrive in the area about 6pm AEDT.

The HMAS Success is also en route to the area, but AMSA says the Durance class ship will not reach the search zone for "some days".

Mr Young says the Success is "well equipped to recover any objects located and proven to be from MH370".

One of the RAAF aircraft, a C-130 Hercules, will drop marker buoys in the area to assist the RCC in providing information about water movement for drift modelling.

"They will provide an ongoing reference point if the task of relocating the objects becomes protracted," Mr Young said.

Flight MH370 has been missing since it disappeared en route to Beijing from Malaysia on March 8.

So far the investigation has focused on the possibility that the plane was deliberately diverted from its flight path.

The plane is thought to have travelled in either of two directions: north west into Asia or south west into the Indian Ocean.

Australia has been leading the search in the southern vector, specifically an area 3,000 kilometres south-west of Perth.

AMSA says the search zone covers 600,000 square kilometres of ocean and has been plotted using data based on the last satellite relay signals sent by the plane.

The search now encompasses an area stretching 7.7 million square kilometres - an area larger than the entire land mass of Australia.