The MP told the President before a State dinner with the Australian premiers at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing — an unprecedented audience — that search teams led by the Australian ship Ocean Shield had narrowed down the area in the Indian Ocean where pings from the flight recorders are being received to a grid of around 10km by 10km.
He told President Xi that there is now a high degree of confidence that the signals were the black boxes.
"Three deep-sea submarines used to search for wreckage of the crashed Air France Flight 447 have also been sent to aid in the search for MH370.
The three "Abyss" type submarines can dive to depths of 6,000m and stay submerged for up to 24 hours."
a 10x10KM area 6000 feet below the waves is not exactly "pinpointing".
ReplyDeleteI guess it's relative to the entire Indian Ocean, where they started. At the beginning, arguments were being made that the plane flew north, into China or Pakistan, or to Diego Garcia. If it weren't for the good work of the Inmarsat people in analyzing the handshake pings with the plane's engines, we would have really no idea where it could have gone.
DeleteThey may still never find it. Looking for a very small object in the bottom of the ocean with teh pinger about to die.
ReplyDeleteIt certainly won't be easy. There are also supposedly very strong currents deep down, which are powerful enough to scour the seabed clean. Although I'm not sure how much they really know, if that's true, imagine having to guide a submersible down 4500 meters and keep it under control in those conditions, let alone use it effectively to search. There has also been some discussion of "side scan sonar" that is said to be very effective at mapping the bottom and identifying likely objects. If so, then that can only help, and if they only have to use it in a 10 x10 km area, their chances improve. This whole mystery is as fascinating as anything Sherlock Holmes dealt with.
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