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Jet Search Team Says Signals Are ‘Consistent’ With Black Boxes Jet Search Team Says Signals Are ‘Consistent’ With Black Boxes
(about 1 hour later)
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — The chief of the team coordinating the hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in the Indian Ocean said Monday that an Australian vessel had twice detected underwater signals “consistent with” flight data and cockpit voice recorders, possibly from the missing jet. KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — An Australian naval ship searching for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane in the Indian Ocean has twice detected underwater signals in the past two days “consistent with” those of a plane’s data and cockpit voice recorders, possibly from the missing jet, the lead coordinator of the multinational search said Monday.
“Clearly this is a most promising lead,” the official, Angus Houston, said at a news conference in Perth, Australia. He called it “probably the best information that we have had” in the search. “Clearly, this is a most promising lead,” the official, Angus Houston, said at a news conference in Perth, Australia. He called the signals “probably the best information that we have had” in the search, which in the past week and a half has focused on an area of the Indian Ocean roughly the size of Poland.
“I’m much more optimistic than I was a week ago,” he said.“I’m much more optimistic than I was a week ago,” he said.
The two “signal detections,” as he called them, occurred within a 24-hour period in the northern part of an area of the Indian Ocean, hundreds of miles off the west coast of Australia, where an international search force has been focusing its efforts in recent days. Mr. Houston cautioned that determining the nature and source of the signals might take several days.
The first detection by the vessel, Ocean Shield, lasted about two hours and 20 minutes, he said. The ship lost contact, turned around, then picked up the signal again, hearing “two distinct pinger returns.” The second detection lasted about 13 minutes, he said. A discovery of the plane using sonic technology would be particularly extraordinary considering that the batteries in the recorders, commonly known as black boxes, are expected to expire as soon as this week. Once the batteries are dead, the boxes’ sonic beacons will cease to operate, making the discovery of undersea wreckage far more difficult.
But Mr. Houston cautioned that determining the nature and source of the signals might take several days. Search forces began deploying the underwater listening technology only last Friday, in a last-ditch effort to hear the black boxes’ signals before they faded.
The two “signal detections,” as Mr. Houston called them, were picked up by Ocean Shield, a Royal Australian Navy vessel, using sensor technology supplied by the United States Navy. They occurred within a 24-hour period over the weekend in the northern part of the current search zone, hundreds of miles off the west coast of Australia.
The first detection, which happened sometime overnight between Saturday and Sunday, lasted about 2 hours 20 minutes, he said. The ship lost contact, turned around, and then picked up the signal again for about 13 minutes, he said.
He added that it might take officials several days to determine whether the sounds were from the missing plane.
“This is not the end of the search,” he said. “We’ve still got a lot of difficult, painstaking work to do.”“This is not the end of the search,” he said. “We’ve still got a lot of difficult, painstaking work to do.”
“In deep oceanic water, nothing happens fast,” he said. “In deep oceanic water,” he cautioned, “nothing happens fast.”
Even with Mr. Houston’s caveats, however, the announcement offered the best hope so far that after more than four weeks of fruitless searching across vast areas of sea and land in the Eastern Hemisphere, officials might finally be zeroing in on concrete evidence of the plane and its fate. The announcement seemed to offer the best indication so far that after more than four weeks of fruitless searching across vast areas of sea and land in the Eastern Hemisphere, officials might finally be zeroing in on concrete evidence of the plane and its fate.
A discovery of the plane using the sonic technology would be particularly extraordinary considering that the batteries in the black boxes are expected to expire as soon as this week. Once the batteries are dead, the boxes’ sonic beacons will cease operating, making the discovery of undersea wreckage far more difficult. “I would now like to find some wreckage because that will help solve the mystery,” Mr. Houston said. “Fundamentally, without wreckage, we can’t say it is definitely here.”
Search forces deployed the underwater listening technology beginning only last Friday in a last-ditch effort to try to hear the black boxes’ signals before they faded. The Malaysia Airlines plane disappeared on March 8 with 239 people on board after it veered off its scheduled route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, and vanished from civilian and military radar. Based on analyses of satellite data, officials concluded that the flight ended somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean.
Ocean Shield is outfitted with a so-called towed pinger locator, a batwing-shaped device that is towed below the vessel and can pick up signals from the black boxes’ beacons. Further data analysis has refined the search, and in the past week and a half ships and aircraft from several nations have been combing a broad swath of the Indian Ocean off the coast of Western Australia.
The Malaysia Airlines plane disappeared on March 8 with 239 people on board after it veered off its scheduled route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, disappearing from civilian and military radar. Based on analysis of satellite data, officials concluded that the flight ended somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean. Despite these efforts, no confirmed debris from the jet has been found. Since it last detected the signal, on Sunday, Ocean Shield has continued to try to locate it again without success, Mr. Houston said. The vessel is outfitted with a so-called towed pinger locator, a batwing-shaped device that is towed behind the vessel, deep in the water, and can pick up signals from the black boxes’ beacons.
Further data analysis has refined the search coordinates, and in the past week and a half the search, which has included a flotilla of ships and daily reconnaissance flights by aircraft from several nations, has focused on a broad swath of the Indian Ocean hundreds of miles off the coast of Western Australia. Mr. Houston said Ocean Shield would continue to use the locator to try to narrow the location of the signals, a process that could take several days. Once a more precise area is defined, he said, searchers will deploy a remote-controlled submarine to map the seabed.
Despite these efforts, no confirmed debris has been found. Mr. Houston said the sea at Ocean Shield’s location is about 2.8 miles deep — about the furthest the submarine, a Bluefin-21, can dive.
“I would now like to find some wreckage because that will help solve the mystery,” Mr. Houston said Monday. “Fundamentally, without wreckage, we can’t say it is definitely here. We have to go down and have a look.” If the search teams are unable to fix the location using the listening equipment, he said, then they might use the Bluefin to “have a look” in the area most likely to be the source of the transmissions.
Over the weekend, searchers’ hopes had moved to a spot about 375 miles southwest of Ocean Shield, and about 1,000 miles northwest of Perth, where a Chinese ship in the search flotilla had reported capturing two signals thought to be from the flight’s black boxes. If the plane’s black boxes are found, the effort will become a recovery operation. At such ocean depths, Mr. Houston warned, that could take “a long, long time,” measurable in months.
A ship from the British Navy equipped with underwater listening technology was diverted from another area in the Indian Ocean to investigate the findings of the Chinese vessel, which reported that its own underwater listening devices had picked up signals on Friday and Saturday that were consistent with the pings emitted by a plane’s black boxes. Officials continued to caution against drawing any conclusions about the source of the signals, warning that false alerts could be set off by sea life — including whales — or by noise from ships, among other causes.
Mr. Houston said that the signals picked up by the Chinese vessel, Haixun 01, would still be pursued, adding that it was “unlikely” that they came from the same source as the signals heard by the Australian vessel. Mr. Houston said he doubted that the signals detected by Ocean Shield were caused by natural sources. But, he added, “Strange things do happen in the ocean, and I would want more confirmation before we say, ‘This is it.’ ”
Over the weekend, searchers’ hopes had shifted to a spot about 375 miles southwest of Ocean Shield, and about 1,000 miles northwest of Perth, where a Chinese ship in the flotilla had reported capturing two signals thought to be from the flight’s black boxes.
A ship from the British Navy also equipped with underwater listening technology was diverted from another area in the Indian Ocean to investigate the findings of the Chinese vessel, which reported that its underwater devices had picked up signals on Friday and Saturday that were consistent with the pings emitted by a plane’s black boxes. In all, there were nine military planes, three civilian planes and 14 ships participating in the search effort on Monday.
Mr. Houston said that the signals picked up by the Chinese vessel, Haixun 01, would still be pursued.
“We have to prosecute both contacts,” he said. “We don’t know at the moment, we don’t have any confirmation, that one or the other is significant enough for us to say, ‘Yes, this is where the aircraft is.’ We have to have further confirmation, and I would put it to you that we cannot confirm until we have found some wreckage.”“We have to prosecute both contacts,” he said. “We don’t know at the moment, we don’t have any confirmation, that one or the other is significant enough for us to say, ‘Yes, this is where the aircraft is.’ We have to have further confirmation, and I would put it to you that we cannot confirm until we have found some wreckage.”
Asked if searchers were close to finding the black boxes, Mr. Houston replied: “I think the lead we have at the moment justifies a very thorough prosecution.” Mr. Houston said it was “unlikely” that the signals heard by Haixun 01 came from the same source as the signals heard by the Australian vessel. “But in deep water, funny things happen with acoustic signals,” he said.
The next step will be for technicians onboard the Ocean Shield to “try to fix the position” of the signal, he said, and he anticipated that the pinger locator would have to be used for at least another day and possibly several days to narrow the location further. If a small area of the seafloor can be pinpointed as promising, searchers will deploy a remote-controlled submarine to map the seabed.
Mr. Houston said the ocean at Ocean Shield’s location was about 2.8 miles deep — about the furthest the submarine can dive, he said.
If the transmissions are confirmed as having come from the plane’s black boxes, he said, the depth of the ocean in that area will ensure that recovery operations take “a long, long time.”
“We’re talking about a long operation here which will be measured in months, and we have yet to find the aircraft,” he said.
Mr. Houston also said he found it “extraordinary” that signals had been detected even though no debris from the plane had yet been found on the surface. Air crashes on water usually leave considerable floating wreckage, at least initially.
But officials continued to caution against certainty about the source of the signals, warning that false alerts could be set off by sea life — including whales — or by noise from ships, among other causes.
Earlier on Monday, the H.M.S. Echo, a British ship that is also outfitted with underwater listening technology, had arrived at the location elsewhere in the broad search area of the Indian Ocean to investigate the reports by the Chinese ship, Haixun 01.
As many as nine military planes, three civilian planes and 14 ships were scheduled to participate in the search on Monday.