The search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 entered its 44th day on Sunday as Australian search officials said a crucial series of sonar scans of the Indian Ocean floor could be completed within a week.

The air, surface and underwater search is now focused on footage taken by a US navy deep sea drone, which has narrowed its target range to a tight 10-kilometers (6.2-mile) circle of sea floor.

The Bluefin-21 autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) has spent the past week scouring the remote and largely unmapped stretch of ocean floor some 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) northwest of the Australian city of Perth for signs of the plane, which disappeared on March 8 with 239 people on board.

The remote controlled submarine is now in its eighth mission with no sign of wreckage so far.

The Malaysian government has said the search is at a "very critical juncture" and asked for prayers for its success. Malaysian Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein has also said the government may consider using more AUVs in the search.

After almost two months without a sign of wreckage, the current underwater search is centered on an area where one of four acoustic signals believed to be from the plane's black box recorders was detected on April 8.

Weeks of daily sorties have failed to turn up any trace of the plane, even after narrowing the search to an arc in the southern Indian Ocean, making this the most expensive such operation in aviation history.

Hopes for further black box signals are fast diminishing, since the black box batteries are now two weeks past their 30-day expected life span, search officials have said.

At the same time, Malaysian Deputy Foreign Minister Hamzah Zainuddin said on Sunday that the families of the passengers and crew of the missing MH370 flight would receive financial assistance from Malaysia Airlines (MAS) to ease their burdens.

Reuters - Xinhua