Originally Posted by
A0283
In the search for the CVR Lion Air has hired a professional private company from the Netherlands using the vessel MPV Everest to map/investigate the LKP area. The ship will probably arrive in the area on December 19th.
A
professional private company? As the Zen Master said, "
We'll see."
Lion Air (and the notion that the airline, rather than the investigative authority, has engaged a search and recovery service is extraordinary in its own right!) has contracted with Maritime Construction Services (MCS), a company that has only been around for only 3 years. MCS has a three page company website and currently operates just one vessel, the MPV Everest. They've had the Everest for less than 12 months. MCS bill themselves as '
an independent Dutch entity and exclusive partner of MRTS Group'. MRTS (Mezhregiontruboprovodstroy) is a Russian subsea construction company specialising in oil and gas pipelines.
Near as I can tell neither MCS or MRTS have ever conducted a subsea search or recovery operation anywhere at any time for anything! The MPV Everest is fitted with a pair of Triton XLX ROVs and a Forum Comanche ROV. None of those ROVs are particularly useful for survey or search work unless they intend to conduct the whole search effort visually; in the context of finding the CVR they're really only useful for conducting visual inspections of previously identified points of interest and some light recovery work. The Everest's apparent only qualification for this sort of operation was that it was handy; it was in Singapore last week. It also has a heavy lift capability not that that is likely to be called upon given the apparent break up of the aircraft on impact.
For the Lion Air 610 contract MCS has announced that they will form a consortium with two local Indonesian companies, Alliance Energy Solutions and PT NADI MARIN SUBSEA. Of that pair, AES is the only one with any sort of subsea sonar search capability via a Kongsberg Hugin AUV.
The whole thing looks like a bugger's muddle to me.