very tough conditions, piers. they are under the gun and they are pressing forward. >> and kyung, the key development in the investigation itself appears to be this revelation that there was a final partial ping that they believe came from the missing plane. what do we know about this? >> reporter: well, it's not completely understood. so the impact on the actual search is unknown right now. the way it's being read here on the ground is that they're going to keep moving forward, that it's a partial ping. it appears to be some sort of offline communication. it's not really quite understood. so as far as the search teams are concerned, they're going to plod ahead, keep moving forward. what is important is what they do know. they do know that there was some debris spotted on monday by an australian plane, a beacon was dropped in that area of debris. the australian ship is going to be heading there today to try to pick up that debris if it is still near that beacon and bring it back.