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Sonar Finds Another Clue on Location of Missing Malaysian Jet Sonar Finds Another Clue on Location of Missing Malaysian Jet
(about 1 hour later)
SYDNEY, Australia — A sensor dropped into the sea by a Royal Australian Air Force plane detected a possible acoustic signal in the same area of the Indian Ocean where a search ship had earlier detected signals that might have come from flight recorders of the missing Malaysia Airlines aircraft, the Australian authorities overseeing the search said Thursday. SYDNEY, Australia — The Australian authorities searching for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane said Friday that the latest potential signal was probably not from the flight recorders, despite hopes raised the previous day.
The announcement of the latest potential clue to the whereabouts of the aircraft contained few details, and the signal could turn out to be another of the many false leads that have dogged the hunt for the plane for more than a month. But it came in the same seas off Western Australia where the Ocean Shield, an Australian ship, had already collected four sets of signals — two on Saturday, two on Tuesday — that could have come from beacons attached to the plane’s two flight recorders. A sensor dropped into the sea by a Royal Australian Air Force plane had detected an acoustic signal in the same area of the ocean where a search vessel had earlier detected signals that might have come from flight recorders of the missing Malaysia Airlines aircraft, the Australian search authorities said Thursday.
Angus Houston, the retired air chief marshal overseeing the search in the southern Indian Ocean, confirmed that an AP-3C Orion plane had detected the signal, the Australian body overseeing the search said in an emailed statement on Thursday. The latest potential clue to the whereabouts of the aircraft came in the same seas off Western Australia where the Ocean Shield, an Australian ship, had already collected four sets of signals — two on Saturday, two on Tuesday — that could have come from beacons attached to the plane’s two flight recorders.
“The acoustic data will require further analysis overnight but shows potential of being from a man-made source,” Mr. Houston said in the statement. Yet Angus Houston, the retired air chief marshal overseeing the search in the southern Indian Ocean, said in an emailed statement on Friday that “an initial assessment of the possible signal detected by a R.A.A.F. AP-3C Orion aircraft yesterday afternoon has been determined as not related to an aircraft underwater locator beacon.”
The Joint Agency Coordination Center, which is overseeing the search, said the signal had been detected by a sonar buoy, or sonobuoy, dropped from the Orion; the buoy’s radio transmits data back to the plane. The center did not give the precise location of the buoy when it caught the signal or the duration of the signal. “The Australian Joint Acoustic Analysis Center has analyzed the acoustic data and confirmed that the signal reported in the vicinity of the Australian Defense Vessel Ocean Shield is unlikely to be related to the aircraft black boxes,” Mr. Houston said.
If authenticated, such data could help narrow the search for wreckage and the flight recorders that may be crucial to determining what caused the disappearance of the plane, a Boeing 777-200, on March 8. It was en route from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing with 239 people on board. That hunt for objects would require using a Bluefin robotic vehicle to search the ocean floor, which Mr. Houston said was about 14,800 feet below the surface, the outer limit of the Bluefin’s ability. He discounted expectations of an impending announcement on the recorders, which are crucial to determining what caused the plane to disappear on March 8. “On the information I have available to me, there has been no major breakthrough in the search,” Mr. Houston said. The Ocean Shield, he added, would continue seeking to “locate further signals that may be related to the aircraft’s black boxes.”
Mr. Houston said analysis had confirmed that the underwater pings detected over the weekend had most likely came from the flight data recorder, ruling out marine mammals or other vessels as the source. “It is vital to glean as much information as possible while the batteries on the underwater locator beacons may still be active,” he said.
“I’m now optimistic we will find the aircraft, or what is left of the aircraft,” Mr. Houston said at a news conference in Perth, Australia, on Wednesday. But he also noted that searchers had still not found debris linked to the plane, and that once the batteries on the locaters expire, the acoustic signals will fade. Speaking in China, however, the Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, appeared confident that previous signals detected by the Ocean Shield did come from the flight recorders’ beacons.
The coordination center said in an email that the main search zone, which had been narrowed down to about 23,000 square miles on Thursday, would be reduced again to two separate areas on Friday totaling about 18,000 square miles. Up to 12 military planes, three civilian aircraft and 13 ships would take part in the hunt on Friday, the center said. “We have very much narrowed down the search area, and we are very confident the signals are from the black box,” Mr. Abbott said, according to the Australian ABC news network.
The area where Ocean Shield is now trawling for acoustic pings is about 1,000 miles northwest of Perth, and several hundred miles east of the main search area, where investigators believe that any plane debris is likely to have drifted. The Joint Agency Coordination Center, which is overseeing the search, said the possible signal had been detected by a sonar buoy, or sonobuoy, dropped from the Orion; the buoy’s radio transmits data back to the plane. Th flight recorders may be crucial to determining what caused the plane, a Boeing 777-200, to disappear on March 8 with 239 people on board en route from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing.
The salvage and rescue coordinator, Capt. Mark M. Matthews of the United States Navy, said in a telephone interview that Australian Navy clearance divers had been collecting small pieces of floating debris. Locating and seeking to retrieve the recorders would require using a Bluefin robotic submersible vehicle to scour the ocean floor, which Mr. Houston said was about 14,800 feet below the surface, putting it at the limit of the Bluefin’s reach.
Captain Matthews, who is in charge of the United States Navy-operated pinger locater being towed by the Ocean Shield, described the latest reception of acoustic signals from the ship as encouraging. “To get a detection builds your confidence,” he said, especially when the last known physical location of the aircraft was thousands of miles away. The batteries on the recorders’ signal beacons have been consuming power for more than 30 days — their standard operating life — and each extra day of signals could prove important to homing on in the recorders.
David Griffin, an oceanographer advising the Australian government on the search, is trying to track debris based on water and wind currents. He said several factors, including a false start in the wrong area, had seriously set the searchers back.David Griffin, an oceanographer advising the Australian government on the search, is trying to track debris based on water and wind currents. He said several factors, including a false start in the wrong area, had seriously set the searchers back.
“The delay was the biggest obstacle,” said Dr. Griffin, a scientist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, Australia’s national science agency. “The first 10 days everyone was looking up in Malaysia.” The coordination center said in an email that the main search zone, which had been narrowed down to about 23,000 square miles on Thursday, would be reduced again to two separate areas on Friday totaling about 18,000 square miles. Up to 12 military planes, three civilian aircraft and 13 ships would take part in the hunt on Friday, the center said.
The area where Ocean Shield is now trawling for acoustic pings is about 1,000 miles northwest of Perth, and several hundred miles east of the main search area, where investigators believe that any plane debris is likely to have drifted.
Mr. Houston said Friday that a decision when to send down the Bluefin submersible vehicle to hunt for the flight recorders and any wreckage “will be made on advice from experts on board the Ocean Shield and could be some days away.”