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| Australian navy vessel reports signals consistent with black box | Australian navy vessel reports signals consistent with black box |
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| An Australian navy vessel searching for a missing Malaysian airliner has picked up deep-sea acoustic signals “consistent” with those emitted by an airplane’s black box, the leader of the multinational search operation said Monday. | |
| Though officials cautioned that they had not yet confirmed the plane’s location, the signals mark the most promising lead in a month-long search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which disappeared March 8 with 239 passengers and crew on board. If the acoustic noises ultimately lead searchers to the missing Boeing 777, the timing of this breakthrough is extraordinarily fortunate: The batteries powering the plane’s emergency beacons will likely run out within hours or days. | |
| Retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston said at a news conference in Perth that the noises are “probably the best information we’ve had” so far. | |
| Houston said the vessel, the Ocean Shield, picked up the signals on two separate occasions Sunday — once for more than two hours, a second time for 13 minutes. On the second occasion, two distinct noises were detected, which would be expected if both the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder are emitting beacons. | Houston said the vessel, the Ocean Shield, picked up the signals on two separate occasions Sunday — once for more than two hours, a second time for 13 minutes. On the second occasion, two distinct noises were detected, which would be expected if both the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder are emitting beacons. |
| It could take days to determine whether the acoustic noises are indeed coming from what’s left of Flight MH370, thought to be at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. Confusing matters, a Chinese patrol ship on Friday and Saturday detected signals of its own, about 300 nautical miles from where the Australian vessel is positioned. Officials say it’s unlikely that the signals detected by the two vessels came from the same source. | It could take days to determine whether the acoustic noises are indeed coming from what’s left of Flight MH370, thought to be at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. Confusing matters, a Chinese patrol ship on Friday and Saturday detected signals of its own, about 300 nautical miles from where the Australian vessel is positioned. Officials say it’s unlikely that the signals detected by the two vessels came from the same source. |
| For at least the next day, the Ocean Shield will continue its slow runs over the small area where it has picked up the acoustics. The goal, Houston said, will be to pinpoint the most likely location of the sound. If that can be done, search crews will lower an autonomous vehicle into the water and onto the three-mile-deep ocean floor to search for wreckage and map out a possible debris field. The process could be arduous, because the ocean depths are at the limit of the vehicle’s capability. | For at least the next day, the Ocean Shield will continue its slow runs over the small area where it has picked up the acoustics. The goal, Houston said, will be to pinpoint the most likely location of the sound. If that can be done, search crews will lower an autonomous vehicle into the water and onto the three-mile-deep ocean floor to search for wreckage and map out a possible debris field. The process could be arduous, because the ocean depths are at the limit of the vehicle’s capability. |
| “This is not the end of the search,” Houston said. “We’ve still got a lot of difficult, painstaking work to do to confirm this is the spot where the aircraft entered the water. The best evidence we could get is imagery from the autonomous vehicle suggesting the aircraft is on the bottom of the ocean.” | “This is not the end of the search,” Houston said. “We’ve still got a lot of difficult, painstaking work to do to confirm this is the spot where the aircraft entered the water. The best evidence we could get is imagery from the autonomous vehicle suggesting the aircraft is on the bottom of the ocean.” |
| If wreckage is found on the ocean floor, searchers will require months to map its location and bring it to the surface. | |
| “In very deep oceanic water; nothing happens fast,” Houston said. | |
| False leads and scant data have hampered the month-long search for the plane, which flew in its final hours through a remote area virtually uncovered by radar. Investigators have tried to piece together the airliner’s likely crash site by analyzing a series of communications the plane made with a satellite while airborne. Both the Australian vessel and the Chinese patrol ship have been operating along the arc that represents a best guess of the plane’s last known position. | |
| While the latest signals provide a tantalizing clue, investigators say they’re still desperate to find physical evidence of the plane’s whereabouts. Search teams began using underwater equipment only last Friday to scan for transmissions from the black box. More than two dozen ships and airplanes have been scouring a broad section of the Indian Ocean well off the western coast of Australia. | While the latest signals provide a tantalizing clue, investigators say they’re still desperate to find physical evidence of the plane’s whereabouts. Search teams began using underwater equipment only last Friday to scan for transmissions from the black box. More than two dozen ships and airplanes have been scouring a broad section of the Indian Ocean well off the western coast of Australia. |
| The Ocean Shield, using black-box detection equipment provided by the U.S. Navy, picked up a signal in a relatively northern part of that search area, about 1,050 miles northwest of Perth. | |
| Still, the plane isn’t necessarily directly below the spot where the signal was detected. Underwater, sound waves behave curiously, bending based on the water’s temperature, pressure or salinity. The sound waves, in some instances, can travel great distances laterally, said Commodore Peter Leavy of the Royal Australian Navy. | |
| “It is a markedly different environment than what you see with sound traveling through air,” Leavy said. | “It is a markedly different environment than what you see with sound traveling through air,” Leavy said. |
| The Ocean Shield is outfitted with a beak-like device called a pinger locator, which is dropped into the water and then dragged on back-and-forth runs. Though the search area is huge, the Ocean Shield is now focusing on a three-by-three mile box where it detected the signals Sunday. When dragging the pinger locator, the vessel moves only a few miles per hour, and pulling a U-turn takes three hours, given the complex network of cables it is towing. One out-and-back run takes seven hours, Leavy said. | The Ocean Shield is outfitted with a beak-like device called a pinger locator, which is dropped into the water and then dragged on back-and-forth runs. Though the search area is huge, the Ocean Shield is now focusing on a three-by-three mile box where it detected the signals Sunday. When dragging the pinger locator, the vessel moves only a few miles per hour, and pulling a U-turn takes three hours, given the complex network of cables it is towing. One out-and-back run takes seven hours, Leavy said. |
| Normally, the pinger locator glides through the water at a depth of about 9,800 feet, or nearly two miles. But when the Ocean Shield first picked up a signal Sunday, the pinger was positioned closer to the surface — about 1,000 feet. | Normally, the pinger locator glides through the water at a depth of about 9,800 feet, or nearly two miles. But when the Ocean Shield first picked up a signal Sunday, the pinger was positioned closer to the surface — about 1,000 feet. |
| Australian and U.S. Navy members aboard the ship cut a series of whirring electronic devices to reduce noise, said Cmdr. William Marks, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet. The pinger locator was then dropped to about 5,000 feet. Those aboard then heard the sound for more than two hours. | |
| “As the Ocean Shield moved through the water, signal got stronger, stronger, stronger, then weaker, weaker, weaker,” Marks said by telephone from a command ship stationed in Yokosuka, Japan. “That’s exactly how you’d expect it if it was the black box.” | “As the Ocean Shield moved through the water, signal got stronger, stronger, stronger, then weaker, weaker, weaker,” Marks said by telephone from a command ship stationed in Yokosuka, Japan. “That’s exactly how you’d expect it if it was the black box.” |
| After another day of work, Ocean Shield crew members will determine whether to lower the autonomous vehicle — a 16-foot submarine-like device called the Bluefin-21. If functional in the three-mile depths, the Bluefin can use sonar to map out a debris field. It can also take photos of the ocean floor. | After another day of work, Ocean Shield crew members will determine whether to lower the autonomous vehicle — a 16-foot submarine-like device called the Bluefin-21. If functional in the three-mile depths, the Bluefin can use sonar to map out a debris field. It can also take photos of the ocean floor. |
| Marks said crew members will deploy the Bluefin only if and when they have a good estimate on where the transmissions are coming from. | |
| “We don’t want to put the Bluefin out there too early in a location where we’re not sure,” he said. “We’d just be roaming around the ocean very ineffectively.” | “We don’t want to put the Bluefin out there too early in a location where we’re not sure,” he said. “We’d just be roaming around the ocean very ineffectively.” |
| Officials involved in the search say they’ve grown more optimistic that wreckage from the aircraft will eventually be recovered. The flight, a red-eye from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing, inexplicably veered from its flight path less than an hour after takeoff in what Malaysian officials describe as a deliberate act by somebody on board. | |
| So far, investigators have revealed little about the criminal investigation into the pilots and passengers. But even if the black box is recovered, the mystery of what happened aboard the aircraft might not be resolved. The cockpit voice recorder keeps only two hours of the latest audio, meaning that critical events shortly after takeoff — when the plane was first steered off course — were overwritten as the plane headed south toward the Indian Ocean. |