JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.
OTHER MH370 STORIES I DONE
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2014/04/day-40-mh370-missing-plane-search-goes.html
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2014/04/day-39-mh370-missing-plane-search-goes.html
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2014/04/day-38-mh370-missing-plane-search-goes.html
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2014/04/day-37-mh370-missing-plane-narrowing.html
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2014/04/day-36-mh370-missing-plane-narrowing.html
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2014/04/day-35-mh370-missing-plane-narrowing.html
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2014/04/day-34-mh370-missing-plane-narrowing.html
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2014/04/day-33-mh370-missing-plane-what.html
LINKS FROM DAYS 1 TO 32 ABOUT MH370-777-200ER SEARCH
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2014/04/day-32-mh370-missing-plane-they-may.html
THE MISSING PLANE MH370 SITUATION AT 12:03AM THU APR 17,2014
THE BLUEFIN-21 HAS COMPLETED ITS FIRST MISSION.SCANING 35 SQUARE MILES.AND THE OIL SLICK IS STILL BEING TESTED TO SEE IF ITS FROM MH370-777-200ER.
Search and recovery continues for Malaysian flight MH370
Media Release-17 April 2014—am-JACCUp to ten military aircraft, two civil aircraft and 11 ships will assist in today's search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.Today the Australian Maritime Safety Authority has planned a visual search area totalling approximately 40,349 square kilometres. The centre of the search areas lies approximately 2,170 kilometres north west of Perth.Overnight Bluefin-21 AUV completed a full mission in the search area and is currently planning for its next mission. Bluefin-21 has searched approximately 90 square kilometres to date and the data from its latest mission is being analysed.The oil sample collected by Ocean Shield has now arrived in Perth and will be subject to detailed testing and analysis. We will provide details of the results when they become available.The weather forecast for today is isolated showers and south easterly winds.
-JACC
THE MISSING PLANE MH370 SITUATION AT 6:03AM THU APR 17,2014
NOW THEIR SAYING THERE GOING TO REFRASE OR REGROUP IN THE MISSING PLANE SAGA.THIS TELLS ME-THERE INMARSAT INFO MIGHT HAVE TAKEN THEM WAY OFF TRACK.AND I PREDICT THEY WILL GO BACK TO THE INDONESIAN TURN OUT TO THE INDIAN OCEAN.AND START OVER THERE.SINCE THIS MALAYSIAN INVESTIGATION CREW THROWS US OFF GUARD AT EVERY TURN AND MISLEADS US SO MUCH.OR MAYBE THERE GONNA LOOK AT INDONESIA FINALLY TO SEE IF IT WAS LANDED THERE AND A CLONE PLANE SENT PART WAY TO THE INDIAN OCEAN ON AUTO-PILOT AND SUDDENLY DROPPED INTO THE INDIAN OCEAN TO DISTRACT FROM THE KIDNAPPING OF THE DEFENCE WORKERS AT UNDONESIA SOMEWHERE.
AND ALSO THIS MORNING THE MALAYSIAN OFFICALS WOULD NOT EVEN MEET WITH THE CHINESE FAMILIES TODAY.THEY JUST SENT A MEDIA GUY TO GIVE THE REPORT FOR THE DAY.THE FAMILIES ARE ONCE AGAIN LIVID-THAT NO MALAYSIAN OFFICIALS BRIEFED THEM ON THE INVESTIGATION.MALAYSIA WAS PROBABLY UPSET BECAUSE OF THE GREAT 26 QUESTIONS THE FAMLIES WANTED ANSWRED SO THEY COULD DISCOVER THE COVERUP INDONESIA LANDING OF THE KIDNAPPED CITIZENS ON BOARD.
AND WE ALSO FIND OUT-THE OIL SLICK WAS NOT FROM THE MH370-777-200ER
Malaysia Airlines flight MH370: Stricken plane was 'thrown around like a fighter jet in attempt to dodge radar'-Investigators now convinced that plane was 'flown very low at a very high speed' in bid to avoid radar detection, source claims-Tomas Jivanda Author Biography-Sunday 13 April 2014-The missing Malaysia Airlines flight was “thrown around like a fighter jet” in a bid to dodge radar detection after it disappeared, Malaysian military investigators reportedly now believe.INDEPENENT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njyhTcqtmto
An unnamed source cited by The Sunday Times added that officials are now convinced that the plane was “flown very low at a very high speed”.The source concluded: “And it was being flown to avoid radar.”Black box has fallen silent, admits Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott.It is also possible that the flight surged to 45,000 feet - 10,000 above its normal cruising altitude of 35,000 feet - after disappearing, before dropping to as low as 5000 feet, reports by investigators have suggested.The low altitude would fit in with a report by Malaysia’s New Straits Times newspaper that co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid tried to make a mid-flight phone call shortly before the plane disappeared.In order for the phone signal to reach the reported tele communications tower near the Malaysian city of Penang, the plane would needed to have been flying under 7000 feet.The newspaper report said the signal ended abruptly before contact was established.The report has however been refuted by Malaysian Defence Minister and acting Transport Minister Hishamm uddin Hussein who argued that if this were true, he would have been made aware of the phone call much earlier, but was not.The latest theory comes as it is believed that the batteries on the all-important plane black boxes may have now died. The last of four strong locator signals, believed to be emitted by the boxes from 4,500 meters (15,000 feet) below the surface, were heard on the 8 April.The batteries of the black boxes, which record flight data including conversations from the cockpit, only last a month, meaning the window has now passed.The pings already captured have however allowed the search area to be narrowed down to a 500-square-mile patch of the seabed - around the size of Los Angeles.Once investigators are confident no more sounds will be heard, and the search area can be narrowed no further, a robotic submersible will be sent down to slowly scour for wreckage, a process which could take up to two months.
The key of questions from family members-(2014-04-16 17:44:40)-QUESTIONS FROM MH370-777-2000ER FAMILY MEMBERS TO MALAYSIAN OFFICIALS-APR 16,2014
Family Members website
http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_12ece77a00101eh9v.html
Emergency locator transmitter
As far as we know, MH370 has one fixed ELT and two portable ELT. All ElT has passed the latest maintains check (Malaysia airlines has promised to ask when they did the last check and what has been checked)
1. How many ELT are there on the plane? Including fixed and portable. We have heard two versions. We would like to insure how many?
2. Did Malaysia Airline have regular maintains check for ELT? When was latest check for MH370 ‘s ELT? What is the maintainous interval? And we need to see results of maintainous check. If not possible to see the result during the investigation. We would like to know what has been checked.
3. How your 406 MHz is certified. Your licences?
4. Is it possible to break the ELT at high impact? Where is the 406 MHz ELT exactly located on MH370? (tail of the flight or on the celling of business class)
5. Is the ELT protected in the compartment within the fuselage? Surrounding by metal? will the signal be weaken if the metal shield_
6. Is the cable and blade antenna 9G certified? How much impact is need to active ELT? Does the ELT active in Asiana accident and France Air 447?
7. Are 121.5 MHz 243 MHz useless when aircraft crash in water?
8. The manufacturer of the ELT, the signal of 406MHz supposed to be detected by satellite.
9. Is the 406 MHz is a separate service beside the 121.5 and 243 MHz?
10.If the crew has been trained on how to use ELT?
11. Can ELT unlock and bounce to the surface of water?
12.When plane is trying to land on the sea, can ELT can be activated?
Black box
1. The serials number of the black box on MH370. Manufacturer?
2. What kind of characteristic signal does MH370’s black box pinger send? Is it a pulse, with a peak at 37.5 kHz? The width, the shape of the pulse?
3. What is the sample that Boeing has sent to Australia to compare with the detected pinger? Was it from a normal black box signal or the specific black box on boeing 777, or even the exact black box mount on MH370?
4. How many items can the Flight Data Recorder provide? 25, 57 or 88?
5. How long time can the Cockpit Voice Recorder provide? When did Malaysia Airline start to prolong 2 hours record?
6. Can the detected frequency 33.3kHz can illustrate the coverage environment of the black box? Can the location of the black box also te illustrated?
7.Can the investigation team make an experiment on checking the 33.3kHz is caused by the weaken battery? And how long can 33.3 kHz can be detected under the weaken power situation?
Protocol
1. What protocol does ICAO do when flight missing. What did Malaysia Airline do when MH370 missing. What organization are Malaysia in.
2. We want MH370’s logbook
3. We need Malaysia Civil Aviation Control MH370 Voice Record.
4. Inmarsat in Malaysia , NTSB ，Chief engineer Zaharie personal contact phone number. Directly contact information.
5.Have the searching and rescue team got final result from the searched areas? Are they ensure any impossibility on thosed closed area, if not why close all the other areas?
6. Can Malaysia Government specify the right of kins, especially the right to know the facts of a cases or the details of an incident?
7.We require the ATC audio.
From:The Committee of MH370 family
Malaysia-Ops to be reviewed if no trace of MH370 found under water, says Hishammuddin
BY MUZLIZA MUSTAFA-April 17, 2014-TheMalaysianDatuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein (pic) said officials involved in the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 will have to review current operations and decide the best way forward if the current search does not yield results.“No decision will be made without discussion and there will come a time when we need to regroup and reconsider,” Hishammuddin said.He added that this does not mean that they would stop search operations.“The search will always continue. It’s just a matter of approach,” the acting Transport Minister said at Putra World Trade Centre in Kuala Lumpur this evening.He did not provide a time frame for the search, but said it will be intensified in the next few days.On the results of the data collected by the underwater drone Bluefin-21 which was sent down for the search, Hishammuddin said the visuals were clear but did not contain what they were looking for.“It gives a clear picture of what the seabed look like. It gives us some sort of relief for the next few days when we intensify our deep sea water search.Bluefin-21 has searched a total of 90 square kilometres in its first three trips to the ocean floor.The drone was forced to abort its mission twice this week; the first time after it exceeded its depth limit and the second time due to a technical issue.After the latter was resolved, it was sent into the ocean again.Data from its second and third missions have been downloaded, the Australian Joint Agency Coordination Centre said.The underwater vessel takes two hours to get near the ocean floor and another two hours to return to the surface. It aims to map the ocean floor for 16 hours to retrieve data, which then takes four hours to analyse.The vessel searches maximum depths of 4,500 metres. The US Navy has determined that the seabed in the search area reaches a maximum depth of 4,600 metres.Bluefin operators said it could be reprogramme to operate at 5,000 metres to give it more leeway.Hishammuddin also defended Putrajaya’s handling of the families of passengers and crew on board the missing aircraft and said it was not fair to just focus on the Chinese families.Yesterday, a technical glitch during a video conference to update Chinese families turned into a screaming match.Families of the passengers attending the Beijing briefing exploded in anger and stormed out.Chinese relatives of the passengers have accused Malaysia of withholding information.The families have 26 questions they want answered. They include requests for shared evidence, including the flight's logbook and recording of air traffic control the night the plane disappeared.Hishammuddin today said that the government was cooperating not only with the Chinese authorities but with also other countries whose citizens were involved in the incident.“We are working well with the China authorities and others. I think we have made lots of progress over the past weeks in tackling the families. This is the toughest part, that is, to deal with the families.“But it’s not only China that we have to focus on. It is not fair. There are 15 nationalities on board of the flight and they are waiting patiently,” he said.Hishammuddin said a Malaysian delegation will travel to Beijing in the next few days to advise families on the ongoing search.He added that Putrajaya has put together a committee to deal with the families.Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, China on March 8 with 239 passengers and crew on board when it disappeared from radar at 1.30am.A multinational search involving 26 countries, including Australia, Japan and the United States has been launched to look for the missing aircraft.However, after 41 days, not a single debris or data collected throughout the search have been linked to the missing jetliner. – April 17, 2014.
Best leads for MH370 search will be exhausted in about a week, says Abbott
April 17, 2014-TheMalaysianAbbott said authorities would need to rethink their approach if the mini-submarine, Bluefin-21, which is scouring the seabed failed to locate the black boxes and wreckage of MH370."We believe that the search will be completed within a week or so," Abbott told WSJ."If we don't find wreckage, we stop, we regroup, we reconsider."Australian authorities have repeatedly cautioned that the search for the plane's wreckage will be long and difficult task.Little is known about the seabed some 4.8 kilometres below the surface of the Indian Ocean. There have concerns that thick silt that may hide debris, including the black boxes, on the ocean floor and strong ocean currents may also slow the movements of the Bluefin-21 autonomous underwater vehicle.The yellow mini-submarine completed its first full mission on its third attempt, officials said today, and seabed data it retrieved was being analysed.The first two attempts to scan the deep Indian Ocean off western Australia failed to produce any results.The first dive began Monday night but aborted automatically after breaching the sub's maximum operating depth of 4,500 metres.The second was launched Tuesday night and cut short yesterday morning due to unspecified "technical" troubles."Overnight Bluefin-21 AUV completed a full mission in the search area and is currently planning for its next mission," Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) said.So far, there have been no significant findings from the data gathered by the unmanned mini-submarine."My determination for Australia is that we will do whatever we reasonably can to resolve the mystery," Abbott told WSJ."If the current search turns up nothing, we won't abandon it, we will simply move to a different phase."Abbott reiterated his confidence that searchers were looking in the right place for flight MH370, based on the electronic signals detected by equipment towed by Australian naval vessel ADV Ocean Shield on April 5 and April 8, around the time that the black boxes' 30-day battery life was due to expire.Flight MH370 was carrying 239 passengers, including 153 people from China, when it disappeared en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur on March 8.The search shifted to the southern Indian Ocean nine days later, soon after investigators realised that the Boeing 777-200ER could have flown on for several hours after losing civilian radar contact over the Gulf of Thailand.
Search of the sea surface has turned up only garbage so far.
WSJ also quoted Australia's Defence Minister David Johnston as saying in an interview that air and sea search for floating debris is nearing its end and any final decision will be made on advice from senior military and search officials."It is obviously becoming less and less optimistic," Johnston had said of the aerial search. Any potential debris field is likely to have "dissipated to the four winds," or sunk, he added.A decision to call off the aerial search would allow nations to count the cost of their involvement up to now, the WSJ report said.Officials have declined to put a total amount on what it has cost each country to deploy ships, aircraft and military crews to Australia to assist in the search effort.Australian Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, who is leading the search operation, had said on Monday: "All of the countries that are contributing to this are running up big costs."WSJ said authorities have several options available if the current underwater search by Bluefin-21 turns up nothing. They could order a second sweep of the seabed in a tight area where the first signals believed to have come from flight MH370's black boxes were detected.The search could also be expanded to a wider area around a series of transmissions heard on four occasions covering 500 square miles. US Navy commanders have said a search on that scale could take six to eight weeks to complete. Authorities are increasingly relying on private contractors as the focus of the search for flight MH370 shifts underwater, said WSJ.Phoenix International Holdings Inc, a US-based technology company, already has a contract with the US Navy to provide underwater detection equipment, including the black box locator and Bluefin-21.With authorities uncertain about the depths of the ocean, other organisations are ready to provide submersibles that can go deeper than Bluefin-21.Martin Dolan, chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau and Australia's top air-accident investigator, said a prolonged undersea search and salvage mission using privately owned equipment could cost up to US$234 million (about RM757 million), WSJ reported.Johnston also said that the underwater search may ultimately end up being run mainly by private companies, although he declined to estimate what that could cost."Ultimately it may well be that there is a civilian contractor to come and pick up the pieces if we have no success," WSJ quoted Johnston as saying.Payment of search and salvage contractors would likely need to be negotiated between Malaysia, who operated the aircraft, the US, where the plane was built, and China, where the majority of passengers came from, Johnston said.Meanwhile, a statement from the JACC said up to 10 military aircraft, two civil aircraft and 11 ships are assisting in today's search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.Today, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority has planned a visual search area totalling approximately 40,349 square kilometres. The centre of the search areas lies approximately 2,170 kilometres northwest of Perth, the statement said.It also added that the oil sample collected by Ocean Shield on Monday has now arrived in Perth and will be subjected to detailed testing and analysis. – April 17, 2014.
COMMENTS FROM THE AVIATION HERALD
http://avherald.com/h?article=4710c69b
By ross bowen on Thursday, Apr 17th 2014 06:58Z
If this area being searched now is where the aircraft hit the water 5 weeks ago the currents talked about in that link, would have any debris perhaps now south of India or west as far as Africa. When you think that the first area of search was undertaken much further south than the present search area, it's obvious that any debris would be drifting north from day one completely in the opposite direction to the search effort. If any debris is still floating they may have to wait until the Gyre brings it back in a months time as it revolves away from Africa and back towards Australia.
By (anonymous) on Thursday, Apr 17th 2014 04:50Z
here's the quote-" It is a phenomenon Erik van Sebille, an oceanographer at the University of NSW, knows well.His research this past summer involved dropping buoys with global positioning systems into a patch of the southern Indian Ocean just east of where the hunt for missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370 is now centred.The rate at which those buoys drifted apart, after starting from virtually the same location, was extraordinary. Three months on and Dr van Sebille said they were more than 1000 kilometres apart.He estimated that a piece of debris in this part of the ocean could drift 100 kilometres in a day."I don't think some people appreciate quite how vast the oceans are or how strong the currents can be, especially down there.
It's one of the most turbulent parts of the world's oceans. I read an article relating to this which quoted oceanic researchers saying pairs of booys dropped 10m apart were found up to 1000km apart after a month. And seat cushions aren't going to show up on satellite images, likely many of the buoyant debris will be floating a few feet below the surface which makes them almost impossible to spot even from the deck of a ship directly above.
Search for Malaysia Airlines jet refocuses on drone scans of seafloor
By Byron Kaye and Swati Pandey 3 hours ago-APR 17,14-YahooNews
SYDNEY/PERTH, Australia (Reuters) - A deep-sea drone had completed its much-anticipated first full scan of the seabed in the remote Indian Ocean, the team looking for a missing Malaysian jetliner said on Thursday, as an air and surface search became less likely to yield results.Footage from a U.S. Navy deep-sea drone is fast becoming the most important tool for a multinational team still searching for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which disappeared from radar screens on March 8 with 239 people aboard.A sample taken from an oil slick in the same area, some 2,000 km (1,240 miles) west of the Australian city of Perth, is also being analyzed. Authorities believe that is the most likely area where the missing jet hit the ocean after disappearing.A series of "pings" recorded earlier this month have led searchers to the remote stretch of ocean in the belief that the signals may have come from the plane's black box recorders.However, with no pings received in more than a week and the black box's battery now 10 days past its approximate expiry date, authorities are relying on the drone.The "Bluefin-21" drone completed its first full 16-hour deployment at a depth of 4.5 km late on Wednesday after a series of technical problems cut short the first two attempts."Bluefin-21 has searched approximately 90 square kilometers to date and the data from its latest mission is being analyzed," the Joint Agency Coordination Centre, the body running the search, said in a statement.On Monday, the search coordinator, retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, said the air and surface search for debris would likely end in three days as the operation shifted its focus to the largely unmapped area of ocean floor.However, authorities said on Thursday up to 10 military aircraft, two civil aircraft and 11 ships would still search an area totaling about 40,000 square km. That would suggest searchers, under pressure from the families of those on board the plane, still hold some hope of finding floating wreckage. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott was quoted by The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday as saying that "we believe that (underwater) search will be completed within a week or so. If we don't find wreckage, we stop, we regroup, we reconsider".Asked by Reuters on Thursday to clarify Abbott's comments to the newspaper, his office said he was only suggesting that authorities may change the area being searched by the Bluefin-21 drone, not that the search would be called off."They've been looking for 40 days and haven't found anything floating yet," Geoffrey Dell, Associate Professor of Accident Investigation and Forensics at Central Queensland University, told Reuters."You'd have to start saying there's either nothing to find or let's move elsewhere," he said.As well as the Bluefin-21, authorities are relying on daily modeling of ocean currents provided by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation's (CSIRO) Marine and Atmospheric Research unit, which may give clues about how any surface debris may have dispersed."People are spending a lot of their time at the moment looking at the daily models to provide updates," Nick Hardman-Mountford, the CSIRO's principal marine scientist, told Reuters."The winds, ocean currents, the time and cyclones passing through, they can all have an influence on what the ocean currents are doing and the model has to be able to capture all of this," Hardman-Mountford said.Houston has hinted that the search, although not yet over, may already rank as the most expensive in aviation history, although authorities are yet to put even an approximate price tag on it.(Writing by Matt Siegel; Editing by Paul Tait)
MH370: Passengers' families release questions-Bluefin-21 has been redeployed again-Author: By Faith Karimi and Josh Levs CNN-Published On: Apr 16 2014 12:48:42 AM CDT Updated On: Apr 16 2014 02:55:30 PM CDT-(CNN)
Families of some of the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 passengers released a list of questions Wednesday that they said authorities have so far not answered.Many of the 26 questions focus on technical issues involving emergency locator transmitters, or ELTs, and "black boxes." With an apparent in-depth understanding of how these work, the families ask about the specific technology on the missing plane.ELTs are designed to activate after a crash and send a signal to a frequency monitored by air traffic controllers. "Black boxes," or voice and data recorders, could shed light on what went on in the plane's cockpit and other crucial flight information.The families' final seven questions involve "protocol," including this: What did Malaysia Airlines do when the flight went missing? The families also ask whether search and rescue teams have final results from searched areas, and whether the Malaysian government could specify the rights of family members "to know the facts of cases or the details of an incident."The questions were posted on the social media site Weibo by a committee in Beijing representing some of the passengers' families. Some of the "questions" are requests that evidence be shared with them, including the flight's logbook and air traffic control audio.Malaysia Airlines, for its part, has said it shares all the information it has with appropriate authorities.In a video message this month, Hugh Dunleavy, the airline's commercial director, said the company shares the same "fundamental requirement" as the families: to find out what happened.Malaysian authorities have come under criticism repeatedly for their handling of the investigation. But the government has insisted it's doing what it can to get to the bottom of what happened and support the families."We understand that it has been a difficult time for all the families. And we appreciate that many families want to see physical evidence before they will accept that MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean," acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said at the end of March. "... The question that the families principally want answered, is the question we simply do not have the answer to -- namely, where their loved ones are, and where is MH370."A week earlier, Hishammuddin made a pledge to the families: "We will do everything in our power to keep you informed."
Bluefin-21 resumes search
An underwater vessel searching for traces of the jet resurfaced Wednesday after 11 hours in the water. The vessel need to have a technical issue repaired.Part of the equipment designed to help the Bluefin-21 move deeper and avoid seepage was low on oil. Officials replenished the supply and redeployed the vessel.The Bluefin-21 has its electronics sealed in bottles so they are protected from salt water. As the probe moves deeper and the pressure increases the operating system pushes oil into these bottles. The oil counters the pressure and prevents salt water from seeping in. If oil fills the container, there's no space for salt water."In no way should this suggest that (the AUV) is not 'hardy' enough to be working at this depth. On the contrary, it is absolutely the best piece of equipment for the job we are doing," a source close to the operation said, adding that technical issues are common at great depths.While on deck, its data were downloaded, the Australian Joint Agency Coordination Centre said."Bluefin-21 ... is currently continuing its underwater search," the center said in a statement. "Initial analysis of the data downloaded this morning indicates no significant detections."This is the second setback for the underwater vehicle that's scanning the ocean floor for debris linked to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.In its first dive Monday, crews dipped it into the Indian Ocean on what was expected to be a 20-hour deployment. It returned less than eight hours later after it exceeded its maximum dive depth."What Bluefin did was it detected that it was moving near its maximum depth, sending signals back to its operators," said Mike Dean, the U.S. Navy deputy director for salvage and diving."After the two signals, which was deeper than what we anticipated, the operators decided to bring it back and reassess the boundaries in which they were operating it," he said.It found no debris during its shortened scanning session.Searchers lowered it toward the ocean floor for a second dive Tuesday, and it resurfaced short of its 24-hour mission because of technical issues. It then went down again.
24-hour mission
Bluefin-21 takes two hours to get near the ocean floor and another two hours to return to the surface. It aims to map the ocean floor for 16 hours to retrieve data, which then take four hours to analyze.The vessel searches maximum depths of 4,500 meters (14,764 feet), and before the technical interruption, it was scheduled to complete its second dive about 10 a.m. ET, a source said. It's unclear when it will finish its current mission following the resurfacing."We have known a long time that especially the recent search area, the new search area they are looking at now, there's a lot of debris there because it is close to what we call the garbage patch, and that's where all of the garbage accumulates," said Erik Van Sebille, a physical oceanographer at University of New South Wales.
'Garbage patch'
"There are five in each basin and one in the Indian Ocean. Everything that has been thrown in the ocean in the last 50 years and still floating is somewhere in this garbage patch." Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished on March 8 with 239 people aboard after taking off from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, bound for Beijing.With no debris found after weeks of searches and no possible pings from the plane's "black boxes" detected in a week, officials said it's time to focus the search underwater.While air and sea surface searches continued Wednesday about 2,087 kilometers (1,297 miles) northwest of Perth, those searches are probably nearing an end."The air and surface search for floating material will be completed in the next two to three days in the area where the aircraft most likely entered the water," said retired Australian Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, head of the Joint Agency Coordination Centre. Fourteen planes, including three civilian jets, and 11 ships are involved in the search Wednesday.It could take up to two months to scan the entire search area.
OTHER MH370 STORIES I DONE
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2014/04/day-40-mh370-missing-plane-search-goes.html
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2014/04/day-39-mh370-missing-plane-search-goes.html
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2014/04/day-38-mh370-missing-plane-search-goes.html
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2014/04/day-37-mh370-missing-plane-narrowing.html
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2014/04/day-36-mh370-missing-plane-narrowing.html
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2014/04/day-35-mh370-missing-plane-narrowing.html
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2014/04/day-34-mh370-missing-plane-narrowing.html
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2014/04/day-33-mh370-missing-plane-what.html
LINKS FROM DAYS 1 TO 32 ABOUT MH370-777-200ER SEARCH
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2014/04/day-32-mh370-missing-plane-they-may.html
THE MISSING PLANE MH370 SITUATION AT 12:03AM THU APR 17,2014
THE BLUEFIN-21 HAS COMPLETED ITS FIRST MISSION.SCANING 35 SQUARE MILES.AND THE OIL SLICK IS STILL BEING TESTED TO SEE IF ITS FROM MH370-777-200ER.
Search and recovery continues for Malaysian flight MH370
Media Release-17 April 2014—am-JACCUp to ten military aircraft, two civil aircraft and 11 ships will assist in today's search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.Today the Australian Maritime Safety Authority has planned a visual search area totalling approximately 40,349 square kilometres. The centre of the search areas lies approximately 2,170 kilometres north west of Perth.Overnight Bluefin-21 AUV completed a full mission in the search area and is currently planning for its next mission. Bluefin-21 has searched approximately 90 square kilometres to date and the data from its latest mission is being analysed.The oil sample collected by Ocean Shield has now arrived in Perth and will be subject to detailed testing and analysis. We will provide details of the results when they become available.The weather forecast for today is isolated showers and south easterly winds.
-JACCTHE MISSING PLANE MH370 SITUATION AT 6:03AM THU APR 17,2014
NOW THEIR SAYING THERE GOING TO REFRASE OR REGROUP IN THE MISSING PLANE SAGA.THIS TELLS ME-THERE INMARSAT INFO MIGHT HAVE TAKEN THEM WAY OFF TRACK.AND I PREDICT THEY WILL GO BACK TO THE INDONESIAN TURN OUT TO THE INDIAN OCEAN.AND START OVER THERE.SINCE THIS MALAYSIAN INVESTIGATION CREW THROWS US OFF GUARD AT EVERY TURN AND MISLEADS US SO MUCH.OR MAYBE THERE GONNA LOOK AT INDONESIA FINALLY TO SEE IF IT WAS LANDED THERE AND A CLONE PLANE SENT PART WAY TO THE INDIAN OCEAN ON AUTO-PILOT AND SUDDENLY DROPPED INTO THE INDIAN OCEAN TO DISTRACT FROM THE KIDNAPPING OF THE DEFENCE WORKERS AT UNDONESIA SOMEWHERE.
AND ALSO THIS MORNING THE MALAYSIAN OFFICALS WOULD NOT EVEN MEET WITH THE CHINESE FAMILIES TODAY.THEY JUST SENT A MEDIA GUY TO GIVE THE REPORT FOR THE DAY.THE FAMILIES ARE ONCE AGAIN LIVID-THAT NO MALAYSIAN OFFICIALS BRIEFED THEM ON THE INVESTIGATION.MALAYSIA WAS PROBABLY UPSET BECAUSE OF THE GREAT 26 QUESTIONS THE FAMLIES WANTED ANSWRED SO THEY COULD DISCOVER THE COVERUP INDONESIA LANDING OF THE KIDNAPPED CITIZENS ON BOARD.
AND WE ALSO FIND OUT-THE OIL SLICK WAS NOT FROM THE MH370-777-200ER
Malaysia Airlines flight MH370: Stricken plane was 'thrown around like a fighter jet in attempt to dodge radar'-Investigators now convinced that plane was 'flown very low at a very high speed' in bid to avoid radar detection, source claims-Tomas Jivanda Author Biography-Sunday 13 April 2014-The missing Malaysia Airlines flight was “thrown around like a fighter jet” in a bid to dodge radar detection after it disappeared, Malaysian military investigators reportedly now believe.INDEPENENT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njyhTcqtmto
An unnamed source cited by The Sunday Times added that officials are now convinced that the plane was “flown very low at a very high speed”.The source concluded: “And it was being flown to avoid radar.”Black box has fallen silent, admits Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott.It is also possible that the flight surged to 45,000 feet - 10,000 above its normal cruising altitude of 35,000 feet - after disappearing, before dropping to as low as 5000 feet, reports by investigators have suggested.The low altitude would fit in with a report by Malaysia’s New Straits Times newspaper that co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid tried to make a mid-flight phone call shortly before the plane disappeared.In order for the phone signal to reach the reported tele communications tower near the Malaysian city of Penang, the plane would needed to have been flying under 7000 feet.The newspaper report said the signal ended abruptly before contact was established.The report has however been refuted by Malaysian Defence Minister and acting Transport Minister Hishamm uddin Hussein who argued that if this were true, he would have been made aware of the phone call much earlier, but was not.The latest theory comes as it is believed that the batteries on the all-important plane black boxes may have now died. The last of four strong locator signals, believed to be emitted by the boxes from 4,500 meters (15,000 feet) below the surface, were heard on the 8 April.The batteries of the black boxes, which record flight data including conversations from the cockpit, only last a month, meaning the window has now passed.The pings already captured have however allowed the search area to be narrowed down to a 500-square-mile patch of the seabed - around the size of Los Angeles.Once investigators are confident no more sounds will be heard, and the search area can be narrowed no further, a robotic submersible will be sent down to slowly scour for wreckage, a process which could take up to two months.
The key of questions from family members-(2014-04-16 17:44:40)-QUESTIONS FROM MH370-777-2000ER FAMILY MEMBERS TO MALAYSIAN OFFICIALS-APR 16,2014
Family Members website
http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_12ece77a00101eh9v.html
Emergency locator transmitter
As far as we know, MH370 has one fixed ELT and two portable ELT. All ElT has passed the latest maintains check (Malaysia airlines has promised to ask when they did the last check and what has been checked)
1. How many ELT are there on the plane? Including fixed and portable. We have heard two versions. We would like to insure how many?
2. Did Malaysia Airline have regular maintains check for ELT? When was latest check for MH370 ‘s ELT? What is the maintainous interval? And we need to see results of maintainous check. If not possible to see the result during the investigation. We would like to know what has been checked.
3. How your 406 MHz is certified. Your licences?
4. Is it possible to break the ELT at high impact? Where is the 406 MHz ELT exactly located on MH370? (tail of the flight or on the celling of business class)
5. Is the ELT protected in the compartment within the fuselage? Surrounding by metal? will the signal be weaken if the metal shield_
6. Is the cable and blade antenna 9G certified? How much impact is need to active ELT? Does the ELT active in Asiana accident and France Air 447?
7. Are 121.5 MHz 243 MHz useless when aircraft crash in water?
8. The manufacturer of the ELT, the signal of 406MHz supposed to be detected by satellite.
9. Is the 406 MHz is a separate service beside the 121.5 and 243 MHz?
10.If the crew has been trained on how to use ELT?
11. Can ELT unlock and bounce to the surface of water?
12.When plane is trying to land on the sea, can ELT can be activated?
Black box
1. The serials number of the black box on MH370. Manufacturer?
2. What kind of characteristic signal does MH370’s black box pinger send? Is it a pulse, with a peak at 37.5 kHz? The width, the shape of the pulse?
3. What is the sample that Boeing has sent to Australia to compare with the detected pinger? Was it from a normal black box signal or the specific black box on boeing 777, or even the exact black box mount on MH370?
4. How many items can the Flight Data Recorder provide? 25, 57 or 88?
5. How long time can the Cockpit Voice Recorder provide? When did Malaysia Airline start to prolong 2 hours record?
6. Can the detected frequency 33.3kHz can illustrate the coverage environment of the black box? Can the location of the black box also te illustrated?
7.Can the investigation team make an experiment on checking the 33.3kHz is caused by the weaken battery? And how long can 33.3 kHz can be detected under the weaken power situation?
Protocol
1. What protocol does ICAO do when flight missing. What did Malaysia Airline do when MH370 missing. What organization are Malaysia in.
2. We want MH370’s logbook
3. We need Malaysia Civil Aviation Control MH370 Voice Record.
4. Inmarsat in Malaysia , NTSB ，Chief engineer Zaharie personal contact phone number. Directly contact information.
5.Have the searching and rescue team got final result from the searched areas? Are they ensure any impossibility on thosed closed area, if not why close all the other areas?
6. Can Malaysia Government specify the right of kins, especially the right to know the facts of a cases or the details of an incident?
7.We require the ATC audio.
From:The Committee of MH370 family
Malaysia-Ops to be reviewed if no trace of MH370 found under water, says Hishammuddin
BY MUZLIZA MUSTAFA-April 17, 2014-TheMalaysianDatuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein (pic) said officials involved in the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 will have to review current operations and decide the best way forward if the current search does not yield results.“No decision will be made without discussion and there will come a time when we need to regroup and reconsider,” Hishammuddin said.He added that this does not mean that they would stop search operations.“The search will always continue. It’s just a matter of approach,” the acting Transport Minister said at Putra World Trade Centre in Kuala Lumpur this evening.He did not provide a time frame for the search, but said it will be intensified in the next few days.On the results of the data collected by the underwater drone Bluefin-21 which was sent down for the search, Hishammuddin said the visuals were clear but did not contain what they were looking for.“It gives a clear picture of what the seabed look like. It gives us some sort of relief for the next few days when we intensify our deep sea water search.Bluefin-21 has searched a total of 90 square kilometres in its first three trips to the ocean floor.The drone was forced to abort its mission twice this week; the first time after it exceeded its depth limit and the second time due to a technical issue.After the latter was resolved, it was sent into the ocean again.Data from its second and third missions have been downloaded, the Australian Joint Agency Coordination Centre said.The underwater vessel takes two hours to get near the ocean floor and another two hours to return to the surface. It aims to map the ocean floor for 16 hours to retrieve data, which then takes four hours to analyse.The vessel searches maximum depths of 4,500 metres. The US Navy has determined that the seabed in the search area reaches a maximum depth of 4,600 metres.Bluefin operators said it could be reprogramme to operate at 5,000 metres to give it more leeway.Hishammuddin also defended Putrajaya’s handling of the families of passengers and crew on board the missing aircraft and said it was not fair to just focus on the Chinese families.Yesterday, a technical glitch during a video conference to update Chinese families turned into a screaming match.Families of the passengers attending the Beijing briefing exploded in anger and stormed out.Chinese relatives of the passengers have accused Malaysia of withholding information.The families have 26 questions they want answered. They include requests for shared evidence, including the flight's logbook and recording of air traffic control the night the plane disappeared.Hishammuddin today said that the government was cooperating not only with the Chinese authorities but with also other countries whose citizens were involved in the incident.“We are working well with the China authorities and others. I think we have made lots of progress over the past weeks in tackling the families. This is the toughest part, that is, to deal with the families.“But it’s not only China that we have to focus on. It is not fair. There are 15 nationalities on board of the flight and they are waiting patiently,” he said.Hishammuddin said a Malaysian delegation will travel to Beijing in the next few days to advise families on the ongoing search.He added that Putrajaya has put together a committee to deal with the families.Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, China on March 8 with 239 passengers and crew on board when it disappeared from radar at 1.30am.A multinational search involving 26 countries, including Australia, Japan and the United States has been launched to look for the missing aircraft.However, after 41 days, not a single debris or data collected throughout the search have been linked to the missing jetliner. – April 17, 2014.
Best leads for MH370 search will be exhausted in about a week, says Abbott
April 17, 2014-TheMalaysianAbbott said authorities would need to rethink their approach if the mini-submarine, Bluefin-21, which is scouring the seabed failed to locate the black boxes and wreckage of MH370."We believe that the search will be completed within a week or so," Abbott told WSJ."If we don't find wreckage, we stop, we regroup, we reconsider."Australian authorities have repeatedly cautioned that the search for the plane's wreckage will be long and difficult task.Little is known about the seabed some 4.8 kilometres below the surface of the Indian Ocean. There have concerns that thick silt that may hide debris, including the black boxes, on the ocean floor and strong ocean currents may also slow the movements of the Bluefin-21 autonomous underwater vehicle.The yellow mini-submarine completed its first full mission on its third attempt, officials said today, and seabed data it retrieved was being analysed.The first two attempts to scan the deep Indian Ocean off western Australia failed to produce any results.The first dive began Monday night but aborted automatically after breaching the sub's maximum operating depth of 4,500 metres.The second was launched Tuesday night and cut short yesterday morning due to unspecified "technical" troubles."Overnight Bluefin-21 AUV completed a full mission in the search area and is currently planning for its next mission," Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) said.So far, there have been no significant findings from the data gathered by the unmanned mini-submarine."My determination for Australia is that we will do whatever we reasonably can to resolve the mystery," Abbott told WSJ."If the current search turns up nothing, we won't abandon it, we will simply move to a different phase."Abbott reiterated his confidence that searchers were looking in the right place for flight MH370, based on the electronic signals detected by equipment towed by Australian naval vessel ADV Ocean Shield on April 5 and April 8, around the time that the black boxes' 30-day battery life was due to expire.Flight MH370 was carrying 239 passengers, including 153 people from China, when it disappeared en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur on March 8.The search shifted to the southern Indian Ocean nine days later, soon after investigators realised that the Boeing 777-200ER could have flown on for several hours after losing civilian radar contact over the Gulf of Thailand.
Search of the sea surface has turned up only garbage so far.
WSJ also quoted Australia's Defence Minister David Johnston as saying in an interview that air and sea search for floating debris is nearing its end and any final decision will be made on advice from senior military and search officials."It is obviously becoming less and less optimistic," Johnston had said of the aerial search. Any potential debris field is likely to have "dissipated to the four winds," or sunk, he added.A decision to call off the aerial search would allow nations to count the cost of their involvement up to now, the WSJ report said.Officials have declined to put a total amount on what it has cost each country to deploy ships, aircraft and military crews to Australia to assist in the search effort.Australian Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, who is leading the search operation, had said on Monday: "All of the countries that are contributing to this are running up big costs."WSJ said authorities have several options available if the current underwater search by Bluefin-21 turns up nothing. They could order a second sweep of the seabed in a tight area where the first signals believed to have come from flight MH370's black boxes were detected.The search could also be expanded to a wider area around a series of transmissions heard on four occasions covering 500 square miles. US Navy commanders have said a search on that scale could take six to eight weeks to complete. Authorities are increasingly relying on private contractors as the focus of the search for flight MH370 shifts underwater, said WSJ.Phoenix International Holdings Inc, a US-based technology company, already has a contract with the US Navy to provide underwater detection equipment, including the black box locator and Bluefin-21.With authorities uncertain about the depths of the ocean, other organisations are ready to provide submersibles that can go deeper than Bluefin-21.Martin Dolan, chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau and Australia's top air-accident investigator, said a prolonged undersea search and salvage mission using privately owned equipment could cost up to US$234 million (about RM757 million), WSJ reported.Johnston also said that the underwater search may ultimately end up being run mainly by private companies, although he declined to estimate what that could cost."Ultimately it may well be that there is a civilian contractor to come and pick up the pieces if we have no success," WSJ quoted Johnston as saying.Payment of search and salvage contractors would likely need to be negotiated between Malaysia, who operated the aircraft, the US, where the plane was built, and China, where the majority of passengers came from, Johnston said.Meanwhile, a statement from the JACC said up to 10 military aircraft, two civil aircraft and 11 ships are assisting in today's search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.Today, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority has planned a visual search area totalling approximately 40,349 square kilometres. The centre of the search areas lies approximately 2,170 kilometres northwest of Perth, the statement said.It also added that the oil sample collected by Ocean Shield on Monday has now arrived in Perth and will be subjected to detailed testing and analysis. – April 17, 2014.
COMMENTS FROM THE AVIATION HERALD
http://avherald.com/h?article=4710c69b
By ross bowen on Thursday, Apr 17th 2014 06:58Z
If this area being searched now is where the aircraft hit the water 5 weeks ago the currents talked about in that link, would have any debris perhaps now south of India or west as far as Africa. When you think that the first area of search was undertaken much further south than the present search area, it's obvious that any debris would be drifting north from day one completely in the opposite direction to the search effort. If any debris is still floating they may have to wait until the Gyre brings it back in a months time as it revolves away from Africa and back towards Australia.
By (anonymous) on Thursday, Apr 17th 2014 04:50Z
here's the quote-" It is a phenomenon Erik van Sebille, an oceanographer at the University of NSW, knows well.His research this past summer involved dropping buoys with global positioning systems into a patch of the southern Indian Ocean just east of where the hunt for missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370 is now centred.The rate at which those buoys drifted apart, after starting from virtually the same location, was extraordinary. Three months on and Dr van Sebille said they were more than 1000 kilometres apart.He estimated that a piece of debris in this part of the ocean could drift 100 kilometres in a day."I don't think some people appreciate quite how vast the oceans are or how strong the currents can be, especially down there.
It's one of the most turbulent parts of the world's oceans. I read an article relating to this which quoted oceanic researchers saying pairs of booys dropped 10m apart were found up to 1000km apart after a month. And seat cushions aren't going to show up on satellite images, likely many of the buoyant debris will be floating a few feet below the surface which makes them almost impossible to spot even from the deck of a ship directly above.
Search for Malaysia Airlines jet refocuses on drone scans of seafloor
By Byron Kaye and Swati Pandey 3 hours ago-APR 17,14-YahooNews
SYDNEY/PERTH, Australia (Reuters) - A deep-sea drone had completed its much-anticipated first full scan of the seabed in the remote Indian Ocean, the team looking for a missing Malaysian jetliner said on Thursday, as an air and surface search became less likely to yield results.Footage from a U.S. Navy deep-sea drone is fast becoming the most important tool for a multinational team still searching for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which disappeared from radar screens on March 8 with 239 people aboard.A sample taken from an oil slick in the same area, some 2,000 km (1,240 miles) west of the Australian city of Perth, is also being analyzed. Authorities believe that is the most likely area where the missing jet hit the ocean after disappearing.A series of "pings" recorded earlier this month have led searchers to the remote stretch of ocean in the belief that the signals may have come from the plane's black box recorders.However, with no pings received in more than a week and the black box's battery now 10 days past its approximate expiry date, authorities are relying on the drone.The "Bluefin-21" drone completed its first full 16-hour deployment at a depth of 4.5 km late on Wednesday after a series of technical problems cut short the first two attempts."Bluefin-21 has searched approximately 90 square kilometers to date and the data from its latest mission is being analyzed," the Joint Agency Coordination Centre, the body running the search, said in a statement.On Monday, the search coordinator, retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, said the air and surface search for debris would likely end in three days as the operation shifted its focus to the largely unmapped area of ocean floor.However, authorities said on Thursday up to 10 military aircraft, two civil aircraft and 11 ships would still search an area totaling about 40,000 square km. That would suggest searchers, under pressure from the families of those on board the plane, still hold some hope of finding floating wreckage. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott was quoted by The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday as saying that "we believe that (underwater) search will be completed within a week or so. If we don't find wreckage, we stop, we regroup, we reconsider".Asked by Reuters on Thursday to clarify Abbott's comments to the newspaper, his office said he was only suggesting that authorities may change the area being searched by the Bluefin-21 drone, not that the search would be called off."They've been looking for 40 days and haven't found anything floating yet," Geoffrey Dell, Associate Professor of Accident Investigation and Forensics at Central Queensland University, told Reuters."You'd have to start saying there's either nothing to find or let's move elsewhere," he said.As well as the Bluefin-21, authorities are relying on daily modeling of ocean currents provided by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation's (CSIRO) Marine and Atmospheric Research unit, which may give clues about how any surface debris may have dispersed."People are spending a lot of their time at the moment looking at the daily models to provide updates," Nick Hardman-Mountford, the CSIRO's principal marine scientist, told Reuters."The winds, ocean currents, the time and cyclones passing through, they can all have an influence on what the ocean currents are doing and the model has to be able to capture all of this," Hardman-Mountford said.Houston has hinted that the search, although not yet over, may already rank as the most expensive in aviation history, although authorities are yet to put even an approximate price tag on it.(Writing by Matt Siegel; Editing by Paul Tait)
MH370: Passengers' families release questions-Bluefin-21 has been redeployed again-Author: By Faith Karimi and Josh Levs CNN-Published On: Apr 16 2014 12:48:42 AM CDT Updated On: Apr 16 2014 02:55:30 PM CDT-(CNN)
Families of some of the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 passengers released a list of questions Wednesday that they said authorities have so far not answered.Many of the 26 questions focus on technical issues involving emergency locator transmitters, or ELTs, and "black boxes." With an apparent in-depth understanding of how these work, the families ask about the specific technology on the missing plane.ELTs are designed to activate after a crash and send a signal to a frequency monitored by air traffic controllers. "Black boxes," or voice and data recorders, could shed light on what went on in the plane's cockpit and other crucial flight information.The families' final seven questions involve "protocol," including this: What did Malaysia Airlines do when the flight went missing? The families also ask whether search and rescue teams have final results from searched areas, and whether the Malaysian government could specify the rights of family members "to know the facts of cases or the details of an incident."The questions were posted on the social media site Weibo by a committee in Beijing representing some of the passengers' families. Some of the "questions" are requests that evidence be shared with them, including the flight's logbook and air traffic control audio.Malaysia Airlines, for its part, has said it shares all the information it has with appropriate authorities.In a video message this month, Hugh Dunleavy, the airline's commercial director, said the company shares the same "fundamental requirement" as the families: to find out what happened.Malaysian authorities have come under criticism repeatedly for their handling of the investigation. But the government has insisted it's doing what it can to get to the bottom of what happened and support the families."We understand that it has been a difficult time for all the families. And we appreciate that many families want to see physical evidence before they will accept that MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean," acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said at the end of March. "... The question that the families principally want answered, is the question we simply do not have the answer to -- namely, where their loved ones are, and where is MH370."A week earlier, Hishammuddin made a pledge to the families: "We will do everything in our power to keep you informed."
Bluefin-21 resumes search
An underwater vessel searching for traces of the jet resurfaced Wednesday after 11 hours in the water. The vessel need to have a technical issue repaired.Part of the equipment designed to help the Bluefin-21 move deeper and avoid seepage was low on oil. Officials replenished the supply and redeployed the vessel.The Bluefin-21 has its electronics sealed in bottles so they are protected from salt water. As the probe moves deeper and the pressure increases the operating system pushes oil into these bottles. The oil counters the pressure and prevents salt water from seeping in. If oil fills the container, there's no space for salt water."In no way should this suggest that (the AUV) is not 'hardy' enough to be working at this depth. On the contrary, it is absolutely the best piece of equipment for the job we are doing," a source close to the operation said, adding that technical issues are common at great depths.While on deck, its data were downloaded, the Australian Joint Agency Coordination Centre said."Bluefin-21 ... is currently continuing its underwater search," the center said in a statement. "Initial analysis of the data downloaded this morning indicates no significant detections."This is the second setback for the underwater vehicle that's scanning the ocean floor for debris linked to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.In its first dive Monday, crews dipped it into the Indian Ocean on what was expected to be a 20-hour deployment. It returned less than eight hours later after it exceeded its maximum dive depth."What Bluefin did was it detected that it was moving near its maximum depth, sending signals back to its operators," said Mike Dean, the U.S. Navy deputy director for salvage and diving."After the two signals, which was deeper than what we anticipated, the operators decided to bring it back and reassess the boundaries in which they were operating it," he said.It found no debris during its shortened scanning session.Searchers lowered it toward the ocean floor for a second dive Tuesday, and it resurfaced short of its 24-hour mission because of technical issues. It then went down again.
24-hour mission
Bluefin-21 takes two hours to get near the ocean floor and another two hours to return to the surface. It aims to map the ocean floor for 16 hours to retrieve data, which then take four hours to analyze.The vessel searches maximum depths of 4,500 meters (14,764 feet), and before the technical interruption, it was scheduled to complete its second dive about 10 a.m. ET, a source said. It's unclear when it will finish its current mission following the resurfacing."We have known a long time that especially the recent search area, the new search area they are looking at now, there's a lot of debris there because it is close to what we call the garbage patch, and that's where all of the garbage accumulates," said Erik Van Sebille, a physical oceanographer at University of New South Wales.
'Garbage patch'
"There are five in each basin and one in the Indian Ocean. Everything that has been thrown in the ocean in the last 50 years and still floating is somewhere in this garbage patch." Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished on March 8 with 239 people aboard after taking off from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, bound for Beijing.With no debris found after weeks of searches and no possible pings from the plane's "black boxes" detected in a week, officials said it's time to focus the search underwater.While air and sea surface searches continued Wednesday about 2,087 kilometers (1,297 miles) northwest of Perth, those searches are probably nearing an end."The air and surface search for floating material will be completed in the next two to three days in the area where the aircraft most likely entered the water," said retired Australian Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, head of the Joint Agency Coordination Centre. Fourteen planes, including three civilian jets, and 11 ships are involved in the search Wednesday.It could take up to two months to scan the entire search area.
