Australia's Houston: Calm face of Flight 370 hunt

He speaks with a calm, steady voice as he tackles question after question in an attempt to explain one of the biggest mysteries the modern world has ever known: What happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370?
Angus Houston has become the global face of the massive monthlong search operation off Australia's west coast to find the missing Boeing 777, which is believed to be resting on the silt-covered bottom of the southern Indian Ocean, somewhere in a patch of sea the size of Los Angeles.
The lanky former head of Australia's defence force has been praised for restoring credibility and confidence that was missing early on when Malaysian officials were tasked with providing answers about how and why the jet carrying 239 people could have flown so far off course and vanished.

Once satellite data revealed that the plane was last detected off Australia's coast, the search - along with the responsibility of updating the world - fell on Houston.
As head of the joint agency coordinating the search, Houston has said from the get-go that he has nothing to hide, and has promised to release every detail of the slow-moving hunt to the passengers' families, who are desperate for any pinch of new information that could explain why their loved ones took off in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on March 8 but never landed in Beijing.
Houston, 66, has a history of taking care of grieving families, including writing letters to air force pilots' widows. Australians know him as a military man with a heart.

"He's accepted to be an exceptionally professional officer and a very personable one, and a deeply caring person," said Neil James, executive director of the Australian Defense Association security think tank, who's known Houston for years.