Subscribe free to our newsletters via your
. Earth Science News .




DISASTER MANAGEMENT
New signal detected in search for MH370 black boxes
by Staff Writers
Perth, Australia (AFP) April 10, 2014


Searchers engaged in a race against time to pinpoint "pings" from the missing Malaysian airliner's black boxes on Thursday detected a possible fifth signal, fuelling hopes that wreckage will soon be found.

The beacons on flight MH370's data and cockpit voice recorders are due to fade, more than a month after the Boeing 777 vanished. So the Australian-led search is vying to determine an exact location before sending down a submersible to plumb the Indian Ocean depths.

The Perth-based Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) said the latest ping was detected Thursday afternoon by an Australian air force P-3C Orion surveillance plane, which has been dropping dozens of sonar buoys into the remote waters of the search zone.

"The acoustic data will require further analysis overnight but shows potential of being from a made-made source," JACC chief Angus Houston said in a statement.

The Australian ship Ocean Shield, bearing a special US Navy "towed pinger locator", is now focused on a far smaller area of the Indian Ocean 2,280 kilometres (1,400 miles) northwest of Perth where it picked up two fresh signals Tuesday.

Those transmissions matched a pair of signals logged over the weekend.

"When you put those two (sets of pings) together, it makes us very optimistic," US Seventh fleet spokesman commander William Marks said earlier on CNN, adding that the search was getting "closer and closer".

"This is not something you find with commercial shipping, not something just found in nature -- this is definitely something that is man-made, consistent with what you would find with these black boxes."

Marks said he expected the pings to last "maybe another day or two" as the batteries powering the black box beacons fade after their normal lifespan of about 30 days.

No floating debris from the Malaysia Airlines aircraft, which disappeared on March 8 with 239 people aboard, has yet been found despite days of exhaustive searching by ships and aircraft from several nations.

- Investigation still 'inconclusive' -

Houston said the high-tech underwater surveillance was meant to define a reduced and more manageable search area in depths of around four kilometres (2.5 miles), but he acknowledged that time was running out.

"I believe we are searching in the right area but we need to visually identify the aircraft before we can confirm with certainty that this is the final resting place of MH370," he said Wednesday.

Houston again urged against unduly inflating hopes, for the sake of the families of missing passengers and crew who have endured a month-long nightmare punctuated by a number of false leads.

But he voiced renewed optimism.

"They (experts) believe the signals to be consistent with the specification and description of a flight data recorder," he said.

No other ships will be allowed near the Ocean Shield as it must work in an environment as free of noise as possible, but up to 10 military aircraft, four civil planes and 13 ships were taking part in surface searches in the region on Thursday, the JACC said.

Houston said it would not be long before a US-made autonomous underwater vehicle called a Bluefin-21 would be sent down to investigate, but has cautioned that it will have to operate at the very limits of its capability given the vast depths involved.

In Malaysia, Home Minister Zahid Hamidi said there was "no conclusive evidence yet" from the continuing investigation into what caused the plane to divert from its Kuala Lumpur-Beijing route.

Zahid, who oversees law enforcement, said around 180 people had been interviewed, including relatives of passengers and crew as well as airline ground staff and engineers.

"We are filtering all the information. When the evidence is conclusive then we will let the media know about it," he said.

A number of theories have been put forward to explain MH370's baffling disappearance.

They include a hijacking or terrorist attack, a pilot gone rogue or a sudden catastrophic event that incapacitated the crew and left the plane to fly for hours until it ran out of fuel in its suspected Indian Ocean crash site.

But no evidence has emerged to bolster any theory.

burs-jit/ac

.


Related Links
Bringing Order To A World Of Disasters
A world of storm and tempest
When the Earth Quakes






Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle




Memory Foam Mattress Review
Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News





DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Italy sounds alarm as 4,000 immigrants land
Rome (AFP) April 09, 2014
Italy said Wednesday that 4,000 immigrants have reached its shores by boat in the past two days - the highest number since it launched a naval operation to rescue them in the wake of two shipwrecks last year. "The landings are non-stop and the emergency is increasingly glaring," Interior Minister Angelino Alfano told Rai Uno public radio. "Right now two merchant ships are rescuing two b ... read more


DISASTER MANAGEMENT
New risk factors for avalanche trigger revealed

Hunt for MH370 closes in on 'final resting place'

Obama to visit US landslide site as death toll rises

Italy sounds alarm as 4,000 immigrants land

DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Dropbox out to be a home in the Internet 'cloud'

Overcoming structural uncertainty in computer models

World's most powerful VHF radar to be overhauled in Russia

NASA Awards Digital Processor Assembly Contract for LCRD Flight Payload

DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Longer catch-and-release time leaves largemouth bass nests more vulnerable to predators

Cyprus opens sewage plant in rare cross-communal effort

Not so dirty: Methane fuels life in pristine chalk rivers

The Atlantic Ocean dances with the Sun and volcanoes

DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Finnish research improves the reliability of ice friction assessment

Permafrost thawing could accelerate global warming

Good pay, no crime: life is good in Chilean Antarctica

River ice reveals new twist on Arctic melt

DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Taking action to deliver agriculture growth, jobs, food security in face of climate change

Chinese pork firm $5.3 bn IPO set to be the biggest in a year

Field study shows why food quality will suffer with rising CO2

The tiniest greenhouse gas emitters

DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Death toll rises to 23 in Solomons floods

Death toll rises to 16 in Solomons floods, 49,000 homeless

Disease threatens flood-hit Solomons

Japanese volcanic island swallows neighbor

DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Top Nigerian Islamic body accuses military over Muslim deaths

DR Congo rebel crackdown should not endanger hostages: charity

French forces move east in new phase of C. Africa operation

Nigerian military hits back at Boko Haram abuse claims

DISASTER MANAGEMENT
New method confirms humans and Neandertals interbred

Indigenous societies' 'first contact' typically brings collapse, but rebounds are possible

Technofossils are an unprecedented legacy left behind by humans

Scientists build 'designer' chromosome




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement All images and articles appearing on Space Media Network have been edited or digitally altered in some way. Any requests to remove copyright material will be acted upon in a timely and appropriate manner. Any attempt to extort money from Space Media Network will be ignored and reported to Australian Law Enforcement Agencies as a potential case of financial fraud involving the use of a telephonic carriage device or postal service.