Experts confirm pulse signals are from a black box
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PERTH: Experts in Australia and the United States have confirmed that the pulse signals picked up by vessels searching for a missing Malaysian airliner in the southern Indian Ocean are from a man-made device and are not natural sounds from the sea, according to the Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre (JACC).
Its chief co-ordinator, Air Chief Marshal (Rtd) Angus Houston, said Wednesday the experts, from the Australian Joint Acoustic Analysis Centre (AJACC) in New South Wales and the black box manufacturer in the United States, had confirmed that the 33.31 kHz signals were from the flight data recorder of a black box.
However, it could not be confirmed whether the signals had come from the black box of the missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight, MH370, he said.
"The two recent signals were detected by the Australian Defence Vessel (ADV) Ocean Shield at 4.27 pm and 10.17 pm yesterday," he told a press conference on developments in the search for the Boeing 777-200ER aircraft.
The first signal lasted for five minutes and 32 seconds and the second, seven minutes, he said.
Last Monday, Ocean Shield detected two signals after having picked up one on Sunday, while a Chinese ship, Haixun 01, traced two signals last Friday and Saturday.
Flight MH370, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, left the KL International Airport at 12.41 am on March 8 and disappeared from radar screens about an hour later, while over the South China Sea. It was to have arrived in Beijing at 6.30 am on the same day.
A multinational search was mounted for the aircraft, first in the South China Sea and then, after it was learned that the plane had veered off course, along two corridors - the northern corridor stretching from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to northern Thailand, and the southern corridor, from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.
Following an unprecedented type of analysis of satellite data, United Kingdom satellite telecommunications company Inmarsat and the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) concluded that Flight MH370 flew along the southern corridor and that its last position was in the middle of the Indian Ocean, west of Perth.
Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak then announced on March 24, seventeen days after the disappearance of the Boeing 777-200ER aircraft, that the flight path of MH370 "ended in the southern Indian Ocean".
Houston said the signals were getting weaker, probably because the black box’s battery was dying or the device was being moved by the ocean's currents.
"The more detection of signals we get, the better we can refine the search area," he said.
He said that for the time being the search area of the Ocean Shield was 25 sq km where it was using a towed pinger locater, while aerial search would also begin at the designated area.
Houston cautioned that one of the challenges for the underwater search would be silt on the ocean floor that could hinder the visual cameras in the search for the aircraft.
He said the silt could be 10 metres deep or more.
Meanwhile, the commander of Joint Task Force 658, Commodore Peter Leavy, said at the same press conference that the search teams had lowered 84 sonar buoyant floats in the search area to assist the Ocean Shield to detect the signals.
He said the devices had several sensors that could detect any signal from about 1,000 feet (304.8 metres) deep.
He also said that the use of submarines in the search was not suitable due to their limited submerge capability compared to the depth of the ocean, which was 4,500 metres. -- BERNAMA
PERTH: Up to 10 military aircraft, four civil aircraft and 13 ships will assist in today's search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
Aircraft and ships reported spotting a large number of objects during yesterday's search, but only a small number were able to be recovered.
None of the recovered items were believed to be associated with MH370.
Today AMSA has planned a search area of about 57,923 square kilometres.
The centre of the search area lies approximately 2280 kilometres north west of Perth.
Moderate south easterly winds with isolated showers are forecast. Visibility will be fair (5000 metres) during the showers.
The underwater search continues today, with ADV Ocean Shield at the northern end of the defined search area, and Chinese ship Haixun 01 and HMS Echo at the southern end.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau continues to refine the area where the aircraft entered the water based on continuing ground-breaking and multi-disciplinary technical analysis of satellite communication and aircraft performance, passed from the international air crash investigative team comprising analysts from Malaysia, the United States, the United Kingdom, China and Australia. -- JACC
