A marine shipwreck expert said the fact that the search operations for Malaysia Airlines (MAS) MH370 managed to find a signal and thus narrowing the search is nothing short of a miracle.

“I have no doubt they will find the plane and bring back the information, the question is when,” said Blue Water Recoveries director David Mearns, in a telephone interview with Astro AWANI.

Mearns, who has extensive experience is finding shipwrecks and planes that crashed in the ocean, said he has full confidence in the teams handling the search and operations as he has worked with some of them before and know of their professionalism.

“A week before I gave them virtually no chance because the information was not good enough and the search area was enormous and unprecedented in its scope.

“For them to get the detections that quickly has been a huge credit to the people, they are doing what they should be doing and in the right way,” said Mearns who was also involved in the discovery of 21 major shipwrecks.

He adds that the SAR operation will take some time and he said: “The public needs to be patient, they should have the confidence that the team will find it and will bring back the answers,” he said.

Mearns is a world-class American-born marine scientist and deep water search and recovery expert, who holds three Guiness World records including the deepest shipwreck ever found- German blockade runner Rio Grande, which was 5,762 meters in the Atlantic Ocean.