Thanks people yes got it now...lets hope for the sake of the relatives this is the plane and it starts to bring some closure to events if they can find the data recorders.
So today I leant something new!
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 missing
- Thread starter quagmire
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Thanks people yes got it now...lets hope for the sake of the relatives this is the plane and it starts to bring some closure to events if they can find the data recorders.
So today I leant something new!
Well, according to the last BBC News bump, the object they were thinking was debris was a freighter that was in the area. So this may not be debris as mentioned. Either way, the Sydney Morning Herald is liveblogging this, so they may be the best authority to go to for this, outside of local outlets in Perth.
BL.
BL.
In my experience there is no such thing as closure or healing. And time only helps the pain to be more tolerable.
I just checked out your link and interestingly, there was no mention of a freighter being mistaken for debris. The 24 meter long unidentified object is rather large and intriquing, but could be something, I have no idea what, that could of come off a freighter or an oil platform.
I think he was mistaking the BBC saying that they had found nothing and including the fact that there was a freighter going through the area which the search planes saw with them actually mistaking the freighter for the debris. I can't find that on the BBC anymore so they may have edited it to avoid confusion like this.
Yes there has been nothing reported about the debris being a freighter. The only thing as of this moment is they haven't located whatever it is.
Mike
Of course there isn't. It was on the BBC that I heard it, not the SMH. It was their 5 - 6 minute news bump that they have every hour. I'll find the link to it or to a source that indicates that it was a ship and not debris.
BL.
It's not a big deal and I was not impugning your input, just an observation about the report.
If they don't find wreckage in the southern Indian Ocean soon -as in the next three or four weeks, I think it highly likely that (assuming the plane went down there) we will never know what happened to it.
The Flight Data recorders are fitted with acoustical "pingers" that help search teams recover them from the ocean depths. However these pingers only have sufficient power to operate for 30-60 days. And the sound signals they emit are relatively low-powered, meaning search teams have to be relatively close (ie. with ten to twenty nautical miles) to locate them.
Every day that goes by increases the radius they would have to search if they do discover wreckage. And without an approximate location to start looking in, the task of finding debris and data recorders becomes pretty much impossible.
The ocean depths in the southern Indian Ocean west of Australia are immense: upwards of 10,000 feet. The sea state (ie. height of waves and wind) is incredibly violent. And unlike locating historical shipwrecks (The Titanic or Bismarck for example) aircraft break up into relatively tiny chunks of aluminum and alloy, which are much, much harder for side-scanning sonar and Magnetic Anomaly Detectors to locate.
The Flight Data recorders are fitted with acoustical "pingers" that help search teams recover them from the ocean depths. However these pingers only have sufficient power to operate for 30-60 days. And the sound signals they emit are relatively low-powered, meaning search teams have to be relatively close (ie. with ten to twenty nautical miles) to locate them.
Every day that goes by increases the radius they would have to search if they do discover wreckage. And without an approximate location to start looking in, the task of finding debris and data recorders becomes pretty much impossible.
The ocean depths in the southern Indian Ocean west of Australia are immense: upwards of 10,000 feet. The sea state (ie. height of waves and wind) is incredibly violent. And unlike locating historical shipwrecks (The Titanic or Bismarck for example) aircraft break up into relatively tiny chunks of aluminum and alloy, which are much, much harder for side-scanning sonar and Magnetic Anomaly Detectors to locate.
excellent points.
also, i think below a certain depth (passed in some of the areas involved), the pings become totally inaudible from the surface
Of course, beyond simply the distance, you also have inversion layers that act like mirrors.
They use Sono-buoys with mics at multiple layers.
It is a race to find the tiniest clue. 1000 sq mi is a lot easier to search than 10,000 sqmi
The original idea was to have pingers with a battery that would last six months, but then Jony Ive came and said "Hey, let's make it thinner".
They found the black box from AF447 at the bottom of the Atlantic 2 years after it crashed. Granted, they found wreckage within a couple days of the crash and knew where to look for the black box.
You may have made a good case that it's a 50/50 proposition that this aircraft will be found if they pick up the black box transmissions or find some wreckage. If not, there's a good chance it won't be found.
It just seems to be a term that maybe was once used, but stuck, after some/many decades ago (I assume) they colored it brightly to make it easier to spot.
Speaking of easier to spot, the unverified rumor at my old employer NWA, was that the tails were originally painted red because of the harsh environments they flew over making them easier to spot when one went down in the snow or mountains...
Last edited:
At some point there will be, My guess is they keep searching at least until the 30 days that that batteries in the black boxes last are past. After that if they haven't found anything then I would guess that the search is called off or at least majorly scaled back.
If it weren't for the fact that people's families are involved here, I would have said that you'd give up when the media produces 'analysis' and evidence that gets discounted, conflicting reports from officials, and leads going to nowhere.
But seeing that families are involved, I would say not until something is found, if ever. So the cynic in my says one thing, while the optimist in me will keep at it and not give up hope.
BL.
I don't think the search will be called off entirely for a very long time. But in the next month or three most of the countries involved will withdraw their search craft. How many are looking? Is it 26? iirc .....China, I believe, will continue for a very long time since it is mostly their citizens on board - plus it fits into a bigger geo-political strategy as they emerge as a world power. Malaysia will probably pay for a couple of ships and planes to search since it's their plane. The US will probably maintain a small presence for awhile because it's an American made plane - and as long as they think it might have been terrorism they will want to know how it was done. And Australia will likely maintain a presence simply because if the Americans and Chinese are there they will want to also be there... it's their side-yard. All of this imho of course.
They kept looking for the Air France plane for 2 years.... so that gives some guidance for time frames.
