MMSM Steve is back on the job and for once he has actually scooped the pack (including the New York Times) and got an exclusive of mi..mi..mi..Beaker flapping his felt gums enough times to make you want to puke...
:
MH370 flight hunt stepped up
AUSTRALIAN Transport Safety Bureau chief commissioner Martin Dolan remains optimistic that searchers can find the wreckage of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 by the time funding runs out later this year.
A fourth vessel, Fugro Supporter, will join the search later this month with an autonomous underwater vehicle designed to probe “shadow” areas that towed sonar equipment was unable to penetrate.
The Fugro Equator, which had been engaged in mapping the sea floor, left the West Australian port of Fremantle on Sunday to join the search and was due to arrive in the search area yesterday along with sister ship the
Fugro Discovery.
They will join the GO Phoenix, which on Monday restarted the methodical search of the area believed most likely to be the site of the mystery crash of the Boeing 777 on March 8 with 227 passengers on board, including six from Australia.
Fugro Supporter is equipped with a HUGIN 45000 AUV, which can be deployed without a connection to the ship to search a pre-programmed area. It ascends automatically and downloads its data.
Mr Dolan said the use of the AUV had always been part of the plan but searchers wanted to see how the towed sonar operated first.
“There was always a provision in the contract that we had with Fugro that we could acquire additional capability,’’ Mr Dolan said. “The towed capability gives us pretty good coverage of the area we’re looking at, but because the terrain is complex and uneven there’s a bit of shadowing and areas where we don’t have a 100 per cent guarantee that we’ve covered adequately, and that’s what the AUV is designed for.’’
The searchers are taking advantage of generally favourable summer conditions in the area and have scanned about 14,000sq km, about a fifth or the area believed to have the highest probability of containing the crash site.
“There’s still quite a way to go with the highest priority areas,’’ Mr Dolan said. “We’re looking at completion in probably April-May.’’ Mr Dolan said that if nothing was found by this date, the ATSB would have to talk to the government about the next steps.
He said the money would run out “around about the same timeframe’’.
“We’ve got the resources to search the priority areas … and we expect to complete that within the resources we’ve been given by April-May,’’ he said. “We’ll keep government informed. We’re still confident that we’ll find it within that priority search area, it’s just that we can’t give a guarantee so governments may have to run their mind to what next. But at this stage we’re focused on the area we’re looking at.’’
The restarted search for MH370 comes as Indonesian investigators this week successfully downloaded information from the flight data recorder from Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 and took possession of the cockpit voice recorder, which will shed light on the last words of the pilots.
The Airbus A320 crashed on December 28 with 162 people on board after encountering severe thunderstorms.
Conversation between the flight crew and air traffic controllers included a request to climb from 32,000ft to 38,000ft to avoid threatening clouds.
Investigators were expected to start reading the data on Wednesday and would begin by looking at 30 indicators such as speed, altitude and engine temperature. They expect a preliminary report on the accident will be produced within a month, and a final report after a year.
The investigation has an Australian connection because the ATSB helped set up the laboratory being used to examine the recorders and trained personnel there. The bureau also has one of its experts in Indonesia co-operating with authorities on some of the work.
Singaporean searchers announced on Wednesday that they had found the fuselage of the downed plane.
Errr....I feel too ill & embarrassed to comment...
