BRENDAN NICHOLSON
THE AUSTRALIAN
April 10, 2014 12:00AM
HOPES are increasing that the wreckage of missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370 will be found in a matter of days after more clear signals, or “pings”, were detected by an Australian navy vessel searching off the West Australian coast.
Former Australian Defence Force chief Angus Houston said yesterday the signals were consistent with those transmitted by locator beacons attached to the two “black boxes” carried by the aircraft, the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder.
The latest signals were picked up by a “pinger locator” towed by the navy vessel Ocean Shield on Tuesday afternoon, for five minutes, and then again on Tuesday night for about seven minutes.
Air Chief Marshal Houston, who heads the multi-agency and international search effort, said the developments were encouraging and hoped that within “days we’ll be able to find something on the bottom”.
“I’m now optimistic that we will find the aircraft, or what is left of the aircraft, in the not-too-distant future. But we haven’t found it yet because this is a very challenging business.”
Air Chief Marshal Houston said it was possible the plane had disappeared into silt at the sea floor, which would make a visual search very hard.
“That could complicate the search because the silt on the bottom of the ocean can be very thick and things disappear into it,” he said. “I believe we are searching in the right area but we need to visually identify aircraft wreckage before we can confirm with certainty that this is the final resting place of MH370.
“For the sake of the 239 families, this is absolutely imperative.
“Now hopefully with lots of transmissions we’ll have a tight, small area and hopefully in a matter of days we will be able to find something on the bottom that might confirm that this is the last resting place of MH370.”
This was happening in the same area where analysis of satellite data indicated that the aircraft’s engines were likely to have “flamed out” as it ran out of fuel.
It was too soon for Ocean Shield to send down a remote-controlled mini-submarine, or autonomous underwater vehicle, to map the sea floor with its built-in sonar equipment.
That device paints a picture with sound waves. If that picks up objects that might be wreckage, the sonar unit would be swapped for a camera.
If it then brings back pictures confirming the aircraft is there, a remotely operated vehicle with robot arms would be sent down to pick up pieces of debris.
“Given the guaranteed shelf life of the pinger batteries as 30 days, and it is now 33 days, since the aircraft went missing, it is important that we gather as much information to fix the possible location of the aircraft while the pingers are still transmitting,” Air Chief Marshal Houston said.
Thorough analysis of the first set of signals picked up by Ocean Shield determined that a very stable, distinct and clear signal was detected at 33.331 kilohertz and that it consistently pulsed at a 1.106-second interval, consistent with a flight data recorder.
Up to 15 aircraft and 14 ships are involved in an intense visual search for debris on the surface. A weak front was moving in and was expected to bring scattered showers. The planned search area is about 75,000 sq km.
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