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MH370 hunt: Submarine dives for 2nd attempt
Hindustan Times ^ | 04/15/2014

Posted on 04/15/2014 12:59:01 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

A mini-sub hunting for Malaysian jet MH370 was Tuesday set for a second sweep of the remote Indian Ocean seabed, after aborting its first search when it encountered water deeper than its operating limits.

The unmanned submarine loaded with sonar deployed Monday night from the Australian ship Ocean Shield which has spearheaded the hunt for the Boeing 777 that vanished on March 8.

"After completing around six hours of its mission, Bluefin-21 exceeded its operating depth limit of 4,500 metres (15,000 feet) and its built in safety feature returned it to the surface," Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Centre said.

"The six hours of data gathered by the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle is currently being extracted and analysed," JACC said.

The AUV had been due to spend 16 hours collecting data. US Navy Captain Mark Matthews said the vehicle had exceeded programmed operational limits and automatically resurfaced.

"In this case the vehicle's programmed to fly 30 metres over the floor of the ocean to get a good mapping of what's beneath," he told CNN from Perth.

Charts had put the depth at 4,200-4,400 metres, he said.

"It went to 4,500 metres and once it hit that max depth, it said this is deeper than I'm programmed to be, so it aborted the mission."

Search zone adjusted

Matthews, a search and recovery expert, said the crew would now refine the task to cope with the depth encountered.

"It happened in the very far corner of the area it's searching. So they are just shifting the search box a little bit away from that deep water."

The US navy's AUV Bluefin-21 would embark on a second mission during the day, weather permitting, JACC said. Agency chief Angus Houston announced Monday the end of more than three weeks of listening for signals

(Excerpt) Read more at hindustantimes.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: cnnrepublic; malaysia; malaysiaairlines; mh370; usnavy; wildgoosechase
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1 posted on 04/15/2014 12:59:02 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind
So they are just shifting the search box a little bit away from that deep water...

The streetlamps in that part of the ocean are a bit brighter.

2 posted on 04/15/2014 1:02:49 PM PDT by C210N (When people fear government there is tyranny; when government fears people there is liberty)
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To: SeekAndFind
This is the stick it out stage.
Unless they get lucky this could be a project that lasts months and ultimately will have more bluefins brought in. -Tom
3 posted on 04/15/2014 1:03:51 PM PDT by Capt. Tom (Don't confuse U.S. citizens and Americans. They are not necessarily the same. -tom)
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To: SeekAndFind

They should send the NR-1


4 posted on 04/15/2014 1:13:47 PM PDT by DCBryan1 (No realli, moose bytes can be quite nasti!!)
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To: SeekAndFind
A mini-sub hunting for Malaysian jet MH370 was Tuesday set for a second sweep of the remote Indian Ocean seabed, after aborting its first search when it encountered water deeper than its operating limits.

Are they expecting the water to be more shallow the 2nd time around?

5 posted on 04/15/2014 1:25:35 PM PDT by rjsimmon (The Tree of Liberty Thirsts)
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To: SeekAndFind

Glad it surfaced, imagine the tinfoil if it had vanished.


6 posted on 04/15/2014 1:27:11 PM PDT by Tijeras_Slim
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To: DCBryan1
They should send the NR-1

They would have to put it back together again. It was retired in 2008 and scrapped.

7 posted on 04/15/2014 1:29:32 PM PDT by Lower Deck
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To: SeekAndFind
Something still is not right about this. The detected an electronic beacon on the same wavelength as the two on the missing plane. OK. But we still have no field of wreckage. They have the ability to chart the ocean currents and tell where the debris would have floated to, but they have not.

Why not?

The pingers they heard may or may not be from this aircraft. There are many thousands of them in existence. It looks like we are now being led to the conclusion that the plane is there but is in too deep of water to verify the wreckage.

My BS alarm is starting to buzz. Chart the path of the debris field and go find it. Give us some physical evidence that what you are trying to feed us is true.

I do not have any big theories but I have my own thoughts. If it is where they say it is then there has to be some physical evidence. Without it this is just the next idea and best guess that so far is as unproven as the last ones.

8 posted on 04/15/2014 1:30:50 PM PDT by oldenuff2no (Mountain ranch raised, Retired AB Ranger.)
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To: C210N

They are moving the salted one to a shallower depth or looking for a better site for the next one. I believe the Diego Garcia theory and guess who is involved there too.


9 posted on 04/15/2014 1:31:18 PM PDT by mcshot (..."And this too shall end.")
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To: Lower Deck

Dang....didn’t know that. USN needed that unique item. We should build another.


10 posted on 04/15/2014 1:37:41 PM PDT by DCBryan1 (No realli, moose bytes can be quite nasti!!)
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To: oldenuff2no

IIRC, they never detected a 37.5Khz pinger.

The pingers they heard were 33.3Khz.

This was explained as frequency drift due to low battery power.


11 posted on 04/15/2014 1:41:46 PM PDT by ltc8k6
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To: oldenuff2no
Why not?

Because if the plane was ditched there, there wouldn't be much if any floatable wreckage to recover. It would all have remained inside the fuselage as it and everything else sunk to the bottom.

12 posted on 04/15/2014 1:41:50 PM PDT by Uncle Chip
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To: DCBryan1

A few of these were used to look for AF447.

They are still available.

http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=38144


13 posted on 04/15/2014 1:43:00 PM PDT by ltc8k6
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To: DCBryan1

A manned submersible would not have the requisite endurance for a large area search. Would be useful for going down to checkout specific targets that needed to be re-visited, however.


14 posted on 04/15/2014 1:45:03 PM PDT by Tallguy
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To: Uncle Chip

It would take a miracle to successfully ditch a 777, though.

It’s not impossible, but it’s very unlikely.

Those giant low hanging engines are going to cause major problems, even on relatively smooth water.

Given the weather and wave data from that morning, it makes it even closer to impossible.


15 posted on 04/15/2014 1:46:28 PM PDT by ltc8k6
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To: Uncle Chip
It would all have remained inside the fuselage as it and everything else sunk to the bottom.

No way would it have all held together. The pressure at those depths would have twisted and crushed that plane into many pieces. When every cushion on the plane is a flotation device, and styrofoam and closed cell foam is used as a filler and insulator in most of the structure it could not possibly have sunk to the bottom without leaving physical evidence floating on the surface.

The only way that plane is fully intact is if it is sitting in a hanger someplace.

16 posted on 04/15/2014 1:51:00 PM PDT by oldenuff2no (Citizen.)
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To: SeekAndFind

“Charts had put the depth at 4,200-4,400 metres, he said.”

Global warming added a hundred meters to the ocean.


17 posted on 04/15/2014 1:57:20 PM PDT by lacrew (Mr. Soetoro, we regret to inform you that your race card is over the credit limit.)
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To: SeekAndFind

The campaign of disinformation chapter 405. :-)


18 posted on 04/15/2014 1:59:58 PM PDT by Georgia Girl 2 (The only purpose o f a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped.)
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To: oldenuff2no

I think people overestimate man’s ability to chart currents. There are some well known prevailing currents in the world...and there are some well traveled routes in the world where currents are well known.

But out in the middle of that ocean? I think man’s knowledge is limited. Not to mention how much havoc storms can cause.

Its been 37 days. If the currents are mis-judged by 1 mph, that equals 900 miles of error.

Remember, they just discovered the ocean was 100 meters deeper than what was charted at this location. Not everything is that well known.

And the debris can be scattered by now...and it turns out that the ocean is a giant garbage bin full of decoy debris, making it very difficult to discern what may be real debris, without sending a ship out to look at it.

What we do know: The pinger frequency is deliberately one that is not usually replicated by natural causes in the ocean. IOW, if they heard pings...it had to be coming from a man made source. Now more than one source heard these pings, on more than one occasion. The final pings were heard at a time when other ships had been asked to stay away - to make absolutely sure there was no mistake or accidental pings.

So, it seems that the plane is down there.


19 posted on 04/15/2014 2:09:40 PM PDT by lacrew (Mr. Soetoro, we regret to inform you that your race card is over the credit limit.)
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To: ltc8k6

Ah more obfusication. I’m shocked, shocked I tell you!!!


20 posted on 04/15/2014 2:10:32 PM PDT by Jaded (Really? Seriously?)
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