An international posse of ships and planes led by Australia braved atrocious weather on Friday to scour a 23,000-square-km patch of the southern Indian Ocean for possible debris from a missing Malaysia Airlines jet.

Marker buoys that could pick up any bleeps from the black box on flight MH370 have been dropped in the search area around 2,500 km south-west of Perth where satellite imagery showed floating objects that could be parts of the fuselage from the lost Boeing 777-200.

Six merchant ships are either in or steaming to the area, backed by four maritime surveillance planes from Australia, New Zealand and the US.

A Norwegian car carrier, the St Petersburg, is already in the search zone but bad weather is restricting visibility in one of the remotest parts of the world.

Australia’s HMAS Success, which has heavy lifting gear on board, is scheduled to arrive in the target area on Saturday.

Transport Minister Warren Truss said each fresh satellite pass could bring up better pictures of possible debris first photographed on March 16.

“That work will continue, trying to get more pictures and stronger resolution so that we can be more confident about where these items are, how far they’ve moved and therefore what efforts should be put into this search effort,” he told national broadcaster ABC.

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