“Just Give Me a Ping, Vasili. One Ping Only”
Posted on 04/05/2014 8:16:41 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
A Chinese ship searching for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 detected a "pulse signal" in the southern Indian Ocean on Saturday, but there was no evidence yet that it was linked to the missing plane, state media said.
The signal picked up by the vessel's black box detector had a frequency of 37.5kHz, the official Xinhua news agency said -- identical to the beacon signal emitted by flight recorders.
The announcement came nearly a month after the Malaysian jetliner disappeared off radar screens en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board, triggering an unprecedented international search.
Australian and British vessels are currently involved in a round-the-clock underwater search in the southern Indian Ocean, hoping to pick up a signal from the plane's black box recorder, but the battery powering those emissions is nearing the end of its roughly 30-day life span.
The Chinese search ship Haixun 01 picked up the pulse signal at about 25 degrees south latitude and 101 degrees east longitude, Xinhua said in a brief dispatch.
"Suspected pulse signal picked up by Haixun 01 has not been identified yet," the China Maritime Search and Rescue Center said on a verified microblog.
Australian Defence Minister David Johnston said he had not received a report on the signal and warned that it may not be from the plane.
"This is not the first time we have had something that has turned out to be very disappointing," he told ABC television.
"I'm just going to wait for (JACC chief) Angus (Houston) and the team and my team to come forward with something that's positive because this is a very very difficult task."
Up to 10 military planes, three civilian jets and 11 ships are currently involved in the protracted search for the Boeing 777, but have so far failed to find any sign of the plane.
Authorities still have no idea how or why the plane vanished, and warn that unless the black box is found, the mystery may never be solved.
Earlier in Kuala Lumpur, Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said Malaysia would, in line with international agreements, appoint an independent "investigator in charge" to lead an international team to probe what happened to MH370.
The team will include Australia, China, the United States, Britain and France.
Hishammuddin again declined to provide any detail from Malaysia's ongoing investigation, however, saying he remained focused on finding the plane and its black box.
"In spite of (the long odds), our determination remains undiminished," he told a press briefing.
Australia is leading the hunt for the plane, which concentrated on Saturday on about 217,000 square kilometres of the Indian Ocean some 1,700 kilometres northwest of Perth.
Malaysian authorities believe satellite readings indicate MH370 crashed in the Indian Ocean, far off Australia's western coastline, after veering dramatically off course during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
But no proof has been found that would indicate a crash site, and Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has described the oceanic search as "the most difficult in human history".
The JACC said Australia's Transport Safety Bureau was continuing "to refine the area where the aircraft entered the water" using further analysis of satellite data and aircraft performance.
Several nations that normally do not work together -- notably the United States and China -- have rallied to help look for clues in one of the world's greatest-ever aviation mysteries.
Authorities still have no idea how or why the plane vanished, and warn that unless the black box is found, the mystery may never be solved.
The Ocean Shield, which is carrying a US Navy "black box" detector, and HMS Echo, which has a similar capability, are searching a 240-kilometre track of ocean in hopes of detecting sonic pings from the recorder.
However, progress is painstaking as vessels must move slowly to improve readings, and officials have acknowledged there is no solid evidence the plane went down in that stretch of sea.
"The search using sub-surface equipment needs to be methodical and carefully executed in order to effectively detect the faint signal of the pinger," Commodore Peter Leavy said.
“Just Give Me a Ping, Vasili. One Ping Only”
Strategery (or maybe tactics).
3.2.1
A
n Underwater Location Beacon (ULB) fitted to an aircraft flight recorder
is triggered by immersion in water. It will emit an ultrasonic pulse of 10
milliseconds, at 37.5 kHz and at one-second intervals. The present ICAO
requirement is for ULBs (“pingers”) to transmit for at least 30 days. They have a
nominal audible range of 2 to 5 km, depending on parameters such as depth,
water temperature and sea conditions.
3
http://www.azi.hr/docs/ACC_GuidelinesWeb%5B1%5D.pdf
Not only that, weather satellites trained on the area watching cyclones form would catch the splashdown.
What if there was no splashdown? I’m still convinced that plane was hijacked and landed. The only reason it hasn’t been used it because now they know the second they start those engines up again, we’ve got them.
This search no longer has a Pulse.
So they go to the media and make a big deal out of a non-identified ping. Why not identify it first.
When I left basic training at Lackland, and arrived at Keesler, I was called a "ping." Do I qualify? :-)
you were upgraded. we were called ‘pickles’ in our day
LOL, ok, I did not know that, but I was told we were called pings, because that was the sound that our new hair made as it grew out of our shaved heads. I could understand that.
The ship first detected a signal Friday but couldn’t record it because the signal stopped abruptly, a Shanghai-based Communist Party newspaper said. The signal detected Saturday, the Jiefang Daily said, occurred at 3:57 p.m. Beijing time (3:57 a.m. ET) and lasted about a minute and a half. It was not clear whether the signal had anything to do with the missing plane.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/05/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane/
I don't see anyone pointing out the reality that where they heard this ping is WAY outside the positions where they plotted the "pings", as presented by both the Malay government & the NTSB, particularly the 8:11 ping.
Still fishy all-around.
Never heard of the Exmouth Triangle...I guess anything is possible
The point was that surely where the AF crashed there were plenty of subs and other craft, more than open Indian Ocean. More likely to “hear” things than this current situation.
Why would they be able to detect something so much smaller than atmospheric clouds forming?
Recorder pings are different from what you are referring to.
SATS have false RGB recon: it separates upper moisture cover from sea-surface moisture, so you can watch what’s happening on the water vs. the upper atmosphere. A crash would show a kerplunk that looks totally different from moisture convection. It would look like a small meteor hit.
Either I wasn’t clear or you’re misreading me:
The Recorder pings, if that’s what they really detected (the Chinese), based on the coordinates provided, are hundreds of kilometers from the plotted location of the last Inmarsat ping at 8:11 on ‘the day-of’...
I was being critical of the data provided to-date, if color charts & graphics suffice as ‘data’...assuming, of course, that the location turns out to be the planes resting spot.
So they’ll either come up with a clever explanation for the difference (another graphic) or...who knows...maybe aliens moved the damned plane. /s
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