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Some even considered the Western ships to be exploiting this chance to photograph the coast and depths which Hezbollah overlooks, SoS |
Ocean Alert has been in port at Beirut for a day or so, reportedly due to weather. It is now back at an area a couple miles west of Damour doing a very tightly spaced pattern in water a little over 100 feet deep. Live Ships Map - AIS - Vessel Traffic and Positions.
Ocean Alert has been stopped at 33.7441N 035.4084E for the past few hours after doing a very dense path of scans of this area over the past 24 hours. The depth is about 135 feet. Perhaps they now have divers down in this location. It is six or seven miles east of where the FDR & CVR boxes are thought to be located in 4,200 feet of water. Odyssey explorer has deep diving ROV's that are capable of examining and recovering objects from very deep water. Also, Odyssey Explorer is now approaching Gibraltar which leaves about 2,200 nm to Beirut. It is making a little over eight knots. It will arrive mid February. Position updates will be seen here (when it passes AIS receivers): Daily Vessel's Itineraries - AIS Marine Traffic. |
Here's the track they've been on for the last 24 hours- they most likely found something
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...OceanAlert.jpg |
ODYSSEY EXPLORER passed Gibraltar and into the Med.
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CVR and FDR located.. BBC news
Black boxes have been found according to BBc news... hopefully some hard facts soon.
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USS Grapple, a Navy "Ops" vessel, has joined the Ocean Alert at the site two miles offshore. It looks like they will be plucking something off of the bottom pretty soon. This location is six or seven miles east of where the boxes were reported to have been located via their pinger signals early in the search. I am not sure if the BBC reference to the boxes one post earlier is talking about being located or actually recovered. There may be other vessels in the area that do not appear on AIS. Military combat vessels and small civilian craft are exempt from AIS requirements.
Odyssey Explorer is now within 2000 nm's of the site and has increase speed to 10.7 knots. |
Beirut-Online reports:
Searchers have located the black boxes of the Ethiopian Airlines plane under the jet's tail that has been discovered off the coastal town of Naameh, Transport Minister Ghazi Aridi said Saturday. "The boxes have been found under the rear part of the fuselage," which was found on Saturday morning, the minister said. "Lebanese army divers have gone down to retrieve them, but this operation will take time," he added. Aridi's announcement came after a press conference he held on Saturday afternoon. Earlier in the day, a search vessel, the vessel Ocean Alert found the rear sections of the aircraft's cabin between 10 and 12 meters long at a depth of 45 meters off Naameh, 12 kilometers south of Beirut. The minister said during the press conference that retrieving parts of the plane was sensitive work. "We made a positive progress in the search for bodies, the (black) box and consequently the plane," Aridi told reporters. "We need time. This is a delicate operation. The most important thing is that we have reached an advanced stage," Aridi said. "The result is positive. However we can't deal with it with hastiness." He also unveiled that Syrian authorities informed him about the discovery of a small part of the plane on the Golden beach in Latakia. It will be handed over to Lebanon on Monday, the minister said. "I take responsibility for any decision I took and any step I made," he told reporters in response to a question on criticism for allowing foreign ships to scour Lebanese waters. The minister reiterated there was no foul play in the plane's crash. An army command communiqué said Saturday morning that crews located parts of the wreckage and teams were photographing them before retrieval. Retrieving the black box and flight data recorder are critical to determining the cause of the January 25 crash. However, Aridi said that even if they were retrieved, the investigation committee needed time to announce final results. |
....found the rear sections of the airplane.......45m... (ie not the front fuselage?)
.... small part of the plane in Syrian waters.... (my edit) (ie not where the main parts were found) previously: multiple bodies found previously: depth of several thousand (ie the rest of the fuselage) All this information, I know it is early days, however, does it increasingly suggest an inflight breakup? |
vanHorck:
...does it increasingly suggest an inflight breakup? No. |
I agree that the new news of the boxes being in 140 feet of water 2 miles offshore instead of 7 miles offshore in 4000 feet of water means that the debris field might be concentrated in one spot. The items collected elsewhere may all have been floating and moving with the wind and currents.
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speaking from experience ..
of searching for "known" aircraft wrecks ... it takes a while, nothing is where you think it is, if it in shallow water it could well have moved or be buried by a storm... best trust the people with the equipment who know where to look, have the means to do so.. and the first findings of what they discover in an initial official release.
TR |
This is from yaLIBNAN, February 7, 2010
"Minister of Transportation and public works Ghazi Aridi told an Nahar newspaper that Lebanon was unable to recover the black boxes with the technology available to the army and Ocean Alert vessel. For this reason he said , Lebanon plans to acquire more advanced technology to complete the task of recovering the debris, the black boxes and the remaining bodies of the victims . Lebanon Files" Is the more advanced technology the two ROV's on the Odyssey Explorer, currently en-route and about 1800 nm's away? The depths of about 140 feet where Ocean Alert has been working and the tail section was reported to be should not be very challenging for divers to reach. The deep diving ROV's can operate down to the 4000 foot depths of the originally reported location of the recorders' pingers. The currently available facts do not fit together very well. It is not possible that ocean currents could move such structure seven miles uphill from a 4000 foot depth to 140 feet of water. Stayed tuned for further news. |
It is not possible that ocean currents could move such structure seven miles uphill from a 4000 foot depth to 140 feet of water. It is possible for wreckage to achieve neutral buoyancy at any depth and be moved about by currents until being snagged by undersea terrain. |
radar coverage
Wasn't the a/c well within radar coverage ? If so, why any doubt about where the incident occurred and the impact point of debris. Also, wouldn't the primary radar clearly show any break-up or am I being dumb ?
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BBC website breaking news reports retrieval of the recorders. No details yet.
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Ethiopia Airlines jet 'black box' retrieved in Lebanon
... according to BBC News - Ethiopia Airlines jet 'black box' retrieved in Lebanon
Which reports that one black box has been recovered, together with 'the cockpit' and 'the rear wings' [?]. Still 'searching' for the second black box. If the report is true, presumably they have the CVR. Regards, Peter |
What makes you think it's the CVR? It doesn't reside in the "cockpit".
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The recovered box is the FDR which will go to France for read out. The CVR is located too. See the reports here: ET409 | Ya Libnan | World News Live from Lebanon.
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Interestingly the eventual location of the wreckage as reported yesterday (2 NM W Naameh) is exactly where the initial reports said, less than six hours after the crash.
Hopefully the black boxes are not damaged. |
http://nowlebanon.com/Library/Images...ackbox-420.jpg
http://nowlebanon.com/Library/Images...wings-2420.jpg Is that the CVR or the FDR? Cause this is the only one they found so far that will be flown on the Prime Minister's private jet to Paris this evening. Still searching for the other box |
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