The hunt for missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 may soon head to the bottom of the ocean using an autonomous sonar vessel after possible black box signals were detected.
Retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, who heads the Joint Agency Coordinating Centre, mentioned that hopes of finding surface debris were fading and that sonic “pings” detected by the Australian naval ship Ocean Shield were the most reliable lead.
Houston told ABC radio that once the position of the signals are identified, autonomous underwater vessel Bluefin-21 would be deployed to the ocean floor to search for wreckage.
“I haven’t had the discussion this morning, we’ll be having that discussion a little later on,” he told ABC radio.
“I imagine we’d be getting very close to that point.”
The search is now centered on a 600-kilometre (370-mile) arc of the southern Indian Ocean, far off the West Australian coast.
Houston announced on Monday that Ocean Shield had detected underwater signals consistent with aircraft “black boxes”, labelling it the “most promising lead” thus far.
The reported signals breakthrough came as the clock strikes past the 30-day lifespan of the emergency beacons of the two data recorders from the Malaysia Airlines jet, which disappeared on March 8 with 239 people on board en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
“As a consequence there is a chance the locator beacon is about to cease transmission, or has ceased transmission,” Houston said.
“I think it’s absolutely imperative to find something else and hopefully when we put the autonomous vehicle down, its capability is such that it’ll be able to find wreckage.
“Unfortunately with the passage of time, oceanic drift and all the rest of it – particularly as a cyclone went through that area in the last few days – the chances of finding anything on the surface are diminishing with time.”
Houston clarified that the 4,500m depth of the ocean floor was the maximum operating limit for a Bluefin-21, which is designed for deep sea surveying and can carry video cameras.
“It can’t go deeper than that, so it’s quite incredible how finely balanced all of this is,” he said.
“It’s a long, painstaking process, particularly when you start searching the depths of the ocean floor.”
More to come.
[Source]
