Posted on 04/09/2014 8:08:50 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
In a major break in a race against time, searchers for MH370 have detected two new electronic pings — both received in the last 24 hours — from what they hope is the missing Boeing BA +1.23% 777-200’s black box flight data recorders. The news was announced at a Wednesday morning press conference in Perth.
“I’m now optimistic that we will find the aircraft; what’s left of the aircraft,” Retired RAAF Air Marshal Angus Houston told reporters.
Just days before batteries on the black box pingers are expected to expire, Australian authorities leading the southern Indian Ocean search for the Malaysia Airlines 777 confirmed that Australian Defence Vessel Ocean Shield had, in fact, detected two new pings in the current northernmost search area; or some 1500 km (930 mi) northwest of Perth.
The U.S. Navy’s TPL-25 Towed Pinger Locator sonar, now deployed on the Ocean Shield, has been operating 24 hours a day at depths of up to 9000 ft. Thus far, it has detected four separate ping events; two on April 5th and two on April 8th local time.
The most recent signals detected by the ocean shield were consistent with what you would expect from a black box held for a little more than five minutes, Seventh Fleet spokesman Cmdr. William Marks told Forbes.com.
“It’s a continuous pinging, with pings at one-second intervals,” Marks said by phone from aboard the U.S.S. Blue Ridge. “Our sonar can pick it, but it’s not audible to the human ear.”
Marks says the pingers attached to the two separate black boxes — a cockpit voice recorder and a separate flight data recorder — each give out separate continuous signals until they run out of battery life, which by some estimates could be any day now.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
The Brits have a sub in the area..which is also a great platform to detect the pincers, but it is unlikely that they would announce it’s results. My guess is that the US also has a sub in the area, but won’t say anything about it’s location or results. Both the subs need to be clear of the area where they are towing the other locators. I think we should keep our sub locations secret..we don’t want the Chicoms knowing if they really did hear or ping them.
What if some group hijacked the plane and had some black boxes they dumped into the ocean to monitor the search techniques?
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Um, then they won’t find the 370’s black boxes there, I guess.
Have we also considered that the plane might have flown into a black hole and is now somewhere else in the universe? Wait...
Have we also considered that the plane might have flown into a black hole and is now somewhere else in the universe? Wait...
That has not been disproved either.
Meanwhile on an airstrip in Pakistan/Iran or Diego Garcia. :-)
Can’t be in Diego Garcia, The United States Navy operates Naval Support Facility (NSF) Diego Garcia, a large naval ship and submarine support base there.
generally go with the simplest explanation. The pilot was upset with his government about the jailed opposition leader, apparently having marital issues and probably decided to hijack the plane and ditch it in the Indian ocean so nobody would find it and it would be a great embarrassment to his government. If that was his goal, mission accomplished. It all seems to fit, he turned off the transponder at just the right time, turned off the acars system, flew around Indonesia and ran into a deep part of the ocean and ditched the plane. He made one mistake though, the acars system was only partially disabled and they got a periodic ping from it that allowed them to figure out where it went. If it wasn’t for that ping there would be no hope of ever finding that plane which was the hijackers obvious intent.
How would one go about extracting a Black Box from an aircraft in water over 10,000 ft?
They were looking in the phone book at the time.
Very carefully?
With extreme difficulty?
Lots of answers to that one.
8^)
5.56mm
Yes I know.
Smart enough to realize that if they want a plane they can buy a plane and not have to deal with all the hassles of hijacking it.
You must be assuming that that is the only black box in the world. Black boxes do not carry a signal identifying the aircraft they are on. Just "ping" to signal where I am and is very limited as to distance.
Exactly!
You prove his point.
I guess I need to use the /s more.
Really? Doesn’t a fake POTUS Iranian sympathizer run the US Navy too?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AUV_ABYSS
A similar autonomous submersible retrieved the French Flight 447 black boxes.
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