Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia's defense minister announced Wednesday evening that Airbus Defense and Space, Europe's main commercial satellite company, had forwarded images taken on Sunday of 122 objects floating southwest of Australia and said that his country had asked Australia to check if they were debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. (Planes, ships chase new leads in search for Malaysian jet)
While the objects might turn out to be unrelated to the aircraft, Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said, "This is still the most credible lead that we have."
Malaysia forwarded the information to Australia on Wednesday. It is unclear if the floating objects can be checked before dark or if an inspection check may need to wait until Thursday, Hishammuddin added.
If the debris turns out to be from the missing plane, the next step would be to figure out how far it might have drifted from where the aircraft might have splashed down, so as to begin an undersea search, Hishammuddin said.
The listening device can pick up the data recorders' signals if it comes within a mile of them but the signals will go silent within a couple weeks anyway. The sonar will work even after the data recorders go silent, but needs to be even closer to detect wreckage on the seabed.
"Even if you've got floating material, if it has been floating for two and a half weeks, it's not going to have much relation to the wreckage" on the seabed, said Jason Ali, an earth sciences professor at Hong Kong University who has studied currents in the Indian Ocean.
"That can slow down your progress considerably, because it makes it more difficult to operate, to get the vehicles in and out of the water," and bad weather can mean days of waiting to resume the search, Purcell said. (Undersea volcanoes, huge seas complicate MH370 search)
Purcell said one advantage was that the sea floor in the southern Indian Ocean was relatively flat compared with the highly varied terrain of the mid-Atlantic. The depth of the water is comparable, however, at more than 10,000 feet.
Military submarines have sophisticated equipment for listening for ships or other submarines. But unlike towed sonar like the Bluefin-21, which the U.S. Navy is sending and which can descend to 14,700 feet, or a towed pinger detector, which can plunge 20,000 feet, military submarines are designed to operate within a few hundred feet of the surface.
That limits their ability to detect pings from far below the surface in water of different densities, moving at different speeds and at different temperatures.
For now, aircraft from Australia and other countries have been looking in an area the size of the western and southwestern United States where the plane is believed to have disappeared after its last signals to a satellite. They have not extended the search to all the places where debris might have drifted. But because the area of the aircraft's disappearance is so far from land, roughly a four-hour flight in each direction, planes can only spend a couple of hours searching.
Because of the distance, only about 4 percent of the probable impact area was searched by aircraft on Monday, for example, and no searching was possible on Tuesday because of bad weather. The search resumed Wednesday.
Making matters worse, oceanographers said, is that currents in the southern Indian Ocean are less well understood than in more heavily trafficked seas. A violent storm on Tuesday, one of many in the region as the southern hemisphere's winter approaches and days become shorter, has further churned the waters. Any debris that stuck up out of the water will have been pushed by the wind in directions that may be different from prevailing currents.
"With any wind, it'll act like a sail," Ali said.
Waves may also have pushed objects in unpredictable directions, making it hard to calculate the movements of any debris that might be found based on prevailing ocean currents.
Even finding the data recorders, although extremely difficult, may not be enough. The cockpit voice recorder only stores the two most recent hours of sounds in the cockpit before the aircraft ceases operating. Investigators have been most interested in why the plane turned around over the Gulf of Thailand roughly seven hours before it is believed to have run out of fuel over the southern Indian Ocean.
The separate data recorder for various aircraft instruments and controls would have saved information from the plane's sharp turn, but might not reveal the intent of whoever was in the cockpit if the turn was deliberate, as the Malaysian authorities have suggested.
(Keith Bradsher reported from Kuala Lumpur, and Nicola Clark reported from Paris. Michelle Innis contributed reporting from Sydney, Australia.)
While the objects might turn out to be unrelated to the aircraft, Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said, "This is still the most credible lead that we have."
Malaysia forwarded the information to Australia on Wednesday. It is unclear if the floating objects can be checked before dark or if an inspection check may need to wait until Thursday, Hishammuddin added.
Advertisement
If the debris turns out to be from the missing plane, the next step would be to figure out how far it might have drifted from where the aircraft might have splashed down, so as to begin an undersea search, Hishammuddin said.
Advertisement
The listening device can pick up the data recorders' signals if it comes within a mile of them but the signals will go silent within a couple weeks anyway. The sonar will work even after the data recorders go silent, but needs to be even closer to detect wreckage on the seabed.
Advertisement
"Even if you've got floating material, if it has been floating for two and a half weeks, it's not going to have much relation to the wreckage" on the seabed, said Jason Ali, an earth sciences professor at Hong Kong University who has studied currents in the Indian Ocean.
Advertisement
"That can slow down your progress considerably, because it makes it more difficult to operate, to get the vehicles in and out of the water," and bad weather can mean days of waiting to resume the search, Purcell said. (Undersea volcanoes, huge seas complicate MH370 search)
Advertisement
Purcell said one advantage was that the sea floor in the southern Indian Ocean was relatively flat compared with the highly varied terrain of the mid-Atlantic. The depth of the water is comparable, however, at more than 10,000 feet.
Military submarines have sophisticated equipment for listening for ships or other submarines. But unlike towed sonar like the Bluefin-21, which the U.S. Navy is sending and which can descend to 14,700 feet, or a towed pinger detector, which can plunge 20,000 feet, military submarines are designed to operate within a few hundred feet of the surface.
That limits their ability to detect pings from far below the surface in water of different densities, moving at different speeds and at different temperatures.
For now, aircraft from Australia and other countries have been looking in an area the size of the western and southwestern United States where the plane is believed to have disappeared after its last signals to a satellite. They have not extended the search to all the places where debris might have drifted. But because the area of the aircraft's disappearance is so far from land, roughly a four-hour flight in each direction, planes can only spend a couple of hours searching.
Because of the distance, only about 4 percent of the probable impact area was searched by aircraft on Monday, for example, and no searching was possible on Tuesday because of bad weather. The search resumed Wednesday.
Making matters worse, oceanographers said, is that currents in the southern Indian Ocean are less well understood than in more heavily trafficked seas. A violent storm on Tuesday, one of many in the region as the southern hemisphere's winter approaches and days become shorter, has further churned the waters. Any debris that stuck up out of the water will have been pushed by the wind in directions that may be different from prevailing currents.
"With any wind, it'll act like a sail," Ali said.
Waves may also have pushed objects in unpredictable directions, making it hard to calculate the movements of any debris that might be found based on prevailing ocean currents.
Even finding the data recorders, although extremely difficult, may not be enough. The cockpit voice recorder only stores the two most recent hours of sounds in the cockpit before the aircraft ceases operating. Investigators have been most interested in why the plane turned around over the Gulf of Thailand roughly seven hours before it is believed to have run out of fuel over the southern Indian Ocean.
The separate data recorder for various aircraft instruments and controls would have saved information from the plane's sharp turn, but might not reveal the intent of whoever was in the cockpit if the turn was deliberate, as the Malaysian authorities have suggested.
(Keith Bradsher reported from Kuala Lumpur, and Nicola Clark reported from Paris. Michelle Innis contributed reporting from Sydney, Australia.)
© 2014, The New York Times News Service
COMMENTS
Advertisement
Watch: Andre Russell Breaks Travis Head's Bat In MLC Match. Australia Star's Reaction Is Viral 10 Years On, 298 Victims Of MH17 Disaster Still Await Justice India, Indonesia, Australia Resolve To Work Towards Free Indo-Pacific World's Largest Isolated Tribe Makes Rare Appearance In New Footage Why BJP Lost Lok Sabha Polls In Uttar Pradesh - 6 Reasons In Party Report "Sell Golgappas?": Kangana Ranaut On Shankaracharya's Remark On E Shinde Arizona Toddler Dies After Father Leaves Her In Hot Car For Hours Citroen Basalt to Break Cover in August 2024; Will Rival Tata Curvv 4 Chinese Pistols, 50 Pak-Manufactured Bullets Recovered In Punjab Track Latest News Live on NDTV.com and get news updates from India and around the world.