Woman leads Aussie navy search for Flight MH370

An Australian woman has been tasked to spearhead an extremely tough search mission for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

Captain Allison Norris, the commanding officer of Australia's second largest ship, HMAS Success, which is expected to arrive in the search area this morning told News Corp via satellite phone that her ship and its 220-strong crew were ready for any challenge.

Norris was expecting the weather and search conditions to deteriorate over the weekend, with a sea state of between three and four - or 2.5m waves and moderate winds.

"That does hamper our ability to search and recover," she said.

Norris said if the ship found any debris from the missing aircraft, her crew would attempt to retrieve it using the ship's inflatable boats and possibly its crane.

"Additional lookouts will be posted and we will brief the crew on what to look for," she told the newspaper.

Norris has been in the navy since 1987 as a seaman officer and warfare specialist.

She was the Commanding Officer of the frigate HMAS Melbourne before being posted ashore and took command of Success in December 2012.

She was executive officer on Melbourne during a deployment to the Gulf under Operation Catalyst and also served on board HMAS Sydney during a Middle East deployment.

In 2010 she was a finalist in the community and government category of the ACT division of the Telstra Business Woman awards.

Norris said the crew was well aware of the importance of the operation.

"They have all seen the pictures on the news."

Their mission - to find and retrieve a 24-metre-long piece of flotsam - could solve the greatest aviation mystery of modern times, the newspaper said.

The ship was making good headway but under overcast skies with a temperature of 15 degrees.

Flight MH370, the Beijing-bound Boeing 777-200ER aircraft, with 227 passengers and 12 crew on board, disappeared about an hour after leaving the KL International Airport at 12.41am on March 8.

It was scheduled to arrive in Beijing at 6.30am on the same day.