More ‘Pings’ Raise Hopes Malaysian Jet Will Be Found

After a navy ship heard more signals from deep in the Indian Ocean, the head of the search for the missing Malaysian jetliner said Wednesday he believes the hunt is closing in on the “final resting place” of Flight 370.

The Australian vessel Ocean Shield picked up two signals Tuesday, and an analysis of two other sounds detected Saturday showed they were consistent with a plane’s flight recorders, or “black boxes,” said Angus Houston, the Australian official coordinating the search for the Malaysian Airlines jet.

“I’m now optimistic that we will find the aircraft, or what is left of the aircraft, in the not-too-distant future,” Houston said. “But we haven’t found it yet, because this is a very challenging business.”

Finding the flight data and cockpit voice recorders soon is important because their locator beacons have a battery life of
about a month, and Tuesday marked one month since Flight 370 vanished March 8 en route from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing with 239 people aboard.

If the batteries fail before the recorders are located, finding them in such deep water — about 15,000 feet — would be difficult, if not impossible.

“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,” Houston said. “For the sake of the 239 families, this is absolutely imperative.”

The hope expressed by Houston contrasted with the frustrating monthlong search for the Boeing 777, which disappeared shortly after takeoff in one of the biggest mysteries in aviation history. The plane veered off-course for an unknown reason, with officials saying that satellite data indicates it went down in the southern Indian Ocean. The black boxes could solve that mystery.

The signals detected 1,020 miles northwest of Perth by the Ocean Shield’s towed ping locators are the strongest indication yet that the plane crashed and is now at the bottom of the ocean in the area where the search is now focused.

A data analysis of the signals heard Saturday determined they were distinct, man-made and pulsed consistently, Houston said.

To assist the Ocean Shield, the Australian navy dropped buoys by parachute in a pattern near where the signals were last heard. Each buoy will dangle a hydrophone listening device about 1,000 feet below the surface.

The detections indicate the beacon is within about a 12-mile radius, or like trying to find a desktop computer in a city the size of Los Angeles, and would take the sub about six weeks to two months to canvass.

This article appeared in print on page 1 of the April 10th, 2014 edition of Hamodia.