SYDNEY — At the mist of discovering the where about of the missing Malaysia airlines flight 370 in the Indian Ocean, authorities will be miles away from solving one of the biggest mysteries in modern aviation.

International search will be faced with the difficulty of finding the rest of the wreckage including the critical Black Box flight recorders that will help to unveil what caused the Boeing 777-200 jet carrying 230 people to disappear in the early hours of March 8 en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur.

Ocean conditions in the search area are among the world’s roughest. The hunt for debris was suspended on Tuesday because of gale winds and sea swells at least four meters (13 feet) high that made it too dangerous for aircraft and ships to continue.

“This part of the world, this Southern Ocean, has shipwrecked many, many sailors in our history in Western Australia,” said Australian Defense Minister David Johnston, whose country is leading the search. “There are 20-, 30-meter waves. It is very dangerous.”

Search crews are working on a tight deadline to pinpoint the Malaysia Airlines wreckage because the black boxes, which emit signals that can indicate their location from thousands of yards away, are designed to last about 30 days. The hunt for Flight 370 is already in its third week. So far searchers haven’t positively identified any aircraft wreckage, though several pieces of suspected debris have been spotted by aircrews scanning a remote stretch of ocean, where a number of possible aircraft items were earlier identified by satellite images.

“You probably couldn’t have picked a worse place in the world for it to have gone down,” said Charitha Pattiaratchi, a professor at the University of Western Australia’s Oceans Institute.

Investigators combing the wreckage of an Air France AF.FR -0.14%  Airbus A330 jet that plunged into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009 took almost two years to retrieve the plane’s data recorder from the depths. French authorities launched their fourth undersea search in March 2011 after three previous attempts to pinpoint the plane failed.

Still, the salvage vessel that may lead the Indian Ocean search for the Malaysia Airlines flight recorders has a track-record in deep-sea recovery, including retrieving a body from a crashed Black Hawk helicopter in deep waters off the island nation of Fiji in 2007.

The U.S. Navy early Tuesday said it would likely use the Seahorse Standard, a commercial ship chartered to the Australian navy, to tow its black-box locator if a debris field is detected. The sturdy 72-meter-long vessel—equipped with sonar and salvage gear, including a remotely operated underwater vehicle—would also be able to carry any wreckage to port where it could be examined by aviation investigators. The ship is currently in Perth, on Australia’s west coast—at least several days’ voyage from the search area. It carries a crew of up to 60 and can remain at sea for 100 days at a time.

In March 2007, the Seahorse Standard recovered the body of an airman from an Australian Black Hawk helicopter in about 3,000 meters of water—almost five months after it crashed while on standby to evacuate Australian citizens from Fiji in the event of a military coup. Australia had used U.S. salvage equipment to pinpoint the location of the helicopter’s black box several months earlier.

The U.S. Navy said its locator, towed behind a ship, was used to help find the black box from Air France Flight 447, which was en route to Paris from Rio de Janeiro when it crashed. Should a debris field for Flight 370 be located, the Navy said it plans to deploy an underwater unmanned vehicle, known as a Bluefin 21, to help with the search. The vehicle can operate for 25 hours and descend nearly 15,000 feet.

The Seahorse Standard, owned by Sydney-based DMS Maritime Pty Ltd., has also carried out work in the oil and gas industry. The company declined to comment on the search Tuesday. The ship’s captain couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

Malaysia’s defense minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, later Tuesday suggested the black box locator would be fitted to Ocean Shield, which was expected to dock in Perth later in the week and could be in the search area by April 5.

The 6,500 metric ton Ocean Shield was bought by Australia’s navy in 2012 to be used to transport troops and supplies on humanitarian and disaster relief missions. The ship has a helicopter landing pad and has accommodation for up to 100 people.

Mr. Hishammuddin said the area being searched for debris was being narrowed down using satellite surveillance, analysis of radar data and the work of crews on ships and plans