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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 3 hours later) | |
| KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — An Australian naval ship searching for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane in the Indian Ocean has detected a series of underwater signals in the last 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 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. | “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. |
| Mr. Houston cautioned that determining the nature and source of the signals might take several days, and that officials were still far from confirming the location of the plane and solving the mystery of its disappearance. | |
| A discovery of the Boeing 777-200 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. | |
| 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. | 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 operated by a team from the United States Navy. They occurred late Sunday in the northern part of the current search zone, hundreds of miles off the west coast of Australia. | |
| The first detection, which happened Sunday evening, lasted about 2 hours 20 minutes, officials said. The ship lost contact, turned around, and picked up the signal again for about 13 minutes, officials said. On the return leg, sensors detected two separate pings coming from different locations, suggesting transmissions from both black boxes. | |
| 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. | 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. |
| “I would now like to find some wreckage because that will help solve the mystery,” said Mr. Houston, who is coordinating the search in the Indian Ocean. “Fundamentally, without wreckage, we can’t say it is definitely here.” | |
| 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. | 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. |
| 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. | 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. |
| Despite these efforts, no confirmed debris from the jet has been found. | |
| Cmdr. William J. Marks, spokesman for the United States Navy’s Seventh Fleet, refused to answer questions about whether the United States provided other, unpublicized information and guidance on the possible location where the plane went down. | |
| 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. | |
| The batteries in the black boxes are expected to last at least 30 days but depending on various factors they can continue working even longer, experts said. | |
| “If we did hear the pings from the black box, I think we’re very lucky,” Commander Marks said. “It of course could go longer than 30 days, but I think we take every day and are thankful for that.” | |
| Ocean Shield will continue to use the locator to try to pinpoint the origin of the signals, a process that is very slow and could take several days, officials explained. The locator is towed at no more than about 3.5 miles per hour and has a range of about a mile. In addition, simply turning the ship around and resetting the locator can take several hours each time. | |
| But if the search teams can define a more precise area where the black boxes might be located, they will then deploy a remote-controlled submarine to map the seabed. | |
| 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. | 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. |
| 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. But Commander Marks said that without a fairly precise idea of the black boxes’ location, “using just the Bluefin with an estimate is going to be an extremely long process.” | |
| 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. | 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. |
| “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,” he cautioned, “nothing happens fast.” | |
| 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. | 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 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.’ ” | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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.” |
| 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. | 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. |
| In Malaysia, Hishammuddin Hussein, the country’s defense minister and acting transport minister, said Monday that he had been briefed personally by Mr. Houston and that the announcement in Perth had made him “cautiously hopeful.” | |
| “We have been through a real roller coaster ride based on leads that we have received,” he said. “But as usual, some leads are much more positive than others.” He added, “I would like everybody to continue to pray.” |