Thursday 2 October 2014

News: MH370 could be found 'within days'

Search vessels are preparing to enter a new phase in the hunt for missing Malaysian airlines flight MH370.
High-tech equipment including sonar and video cameras are set to arrive at a site in the Indian ocean, more than 1,500 kilometres off the Western Australian coast, within days.
Experts believe the plane crashed somewhere in the area after veering off course from it's Kuala Lumpur to Beijing flight on 8 March, with 239 people on board.
A massive land and sea search has failed to find any trace of the plane.
GO Phoenix, the first of the vessels contracted to conduct the underwater search, departed Jakarta, Indonesia more than a week ago, after work was done to prepare the ship for the sea and weather conditions it would encounter.
Chief commissioner from the ATSB Martin Dolan says the vessel is likely to arrive late Sunday.
'When they get going, they will deploy an underwater sonar in on the end of very long cable, eight kilometres, they will tow that sonar in on a toefish, which contains sonar equipoment, close to ocean floor, 100 metres,' he said.
'They send out sonar signals, get them back, a width of about 1.5 kms, that will go up the cable to vessel and crews to look and anaylise for anything for interest.'
'It will be recorded and transferred in batches, re-anaylised so nothing to be missed.'

A three-dimensional model of the seafloor terrain, derived from satellite gravity measurements and some from ocean passage soundings. A bathymetric survey currently underway is focussed on gathering more detailed and higher resolution data in preparation for the underwater search phase

The new stage of the search comes after months of detailed analysis and sea bed surveys, which has indicated the aircraft should be found along a defined arc in the southern Indian Ocean, where it's believed to have run out of fuel. 
The primary search area - dubbed the 'priority area' - is an arc 23,000 square miles (60,000 square kilometres) in size, roughly the size of Croatia, 1,120 miles (1,800km) off the Australian coast. 
'Three things that make it complicated is that we know aircraft will be found there but have to prioritise high probability areas,' said Chief Dolan.
'Also towing expensive equipment, we need to know closely what the ocean floor is like, the sea floor is quite complex, not just a simple matter, additional attention is needed for some areas to cover them properly.'
'Lastly data itself requires a specialised eye to understand, so we also have the capacity to review.'
The chief also mentioned the weather conditions, which can be quite challenging because it is so unpredictable. 
'Weather is improving and the course of this month is as good as it gets, make the searching as easy as possible but still big swells, storm will come through.'
Vessels will also be joining GO Phoenix including Furgo Discovery which has completed fit out works in Durban, South Africa and is en-route to Australia where it is expected to arrive in Fremantle on Sunday.  
Fugro Discovery (pictured), which along with the Malaysian-contracted GO Phoenix, will soon start a new  high-resolution search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370

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