So, aircraft arrive 4, 6 and 8pm so hopefully the weather will clear or be reasonable enough to find and get a visual.

4 hours out, 4 hours back and 2 hours on station searching.

The crews are going to be buggered at the end of each day.


The weather is going to be the problem if it turns to pea soup !

24m is not 62' Anderson - more like 78'

A featureless abyssal plain sea bottom would make wreckage really stand out on sonar scans, no?

Well said. The difference in professionalism, openness and transparency between the Australians and the Malaysians couldn't be greater.

They are indeed throwing resources at this, however I can't help but feel it will turn out to be unrelated. 24m seems too big to me. Which part of a 777 with its longest side measuring 24m, will still float after a week-and-a-half at sea?

A question for T7 drivers or engineers
 

There has been some speculation regarding a fire or an oxygen bottle explosion in the forward avionics bay.
Based on knowledge of what systems are there, if such an event had occurred, would it be possible for the crew NOT to receive a cabin altitude warning or indication, should a depressurization have occurred?
This could possibly lead to the crew becoming incapacitated, with them attempting to return to KL, becoming disoriented and then losing conscious.

As reported, low visibility in search area in question:

http://i.imgur.com/e9YykxZl.jpg

I really does seem like a sudden reallocation of assets and a PM announcement would mean they are convinced it is a real lead. A lot of urgency for a couple of 'blobs' in the water.

That looks quite a storm.


"I really does seem like a sudden reallocation of assets and a PM announcement would mean they are convinced it is a real lead. A lot of urgency for a couple of 'blobs' in the water."


Really ?

Get real. You have professional people looking at the images and making estimates.


As the AMSA guy said, we have been doing this for years so have some experience in it
and based on that decided to take the course of action they have.

It's a hell of a lot better than how the Malaysians conduct briefings etc !



"like a sudden reallocation of assets"

When you own them, you can do what you want with them. This is bread and butter work for the AMSA, RAAF
and probably the US. I doubt the US would jump on board and re task Poseidon without it being worthwhile.

The wings. If it flew to fuel starvation, then fuel tanks in the wings would now be air tanks and float.

https://twitter.com/WilliamsJon/stat...08093091119104

Australian Broadcasting Corporation editor Jon Williams tweets: Crew on @USNavy P-8 spotter tell (ABC correspondent on board P-8) @WrightUps: "significant radar returns" coming from site where possible #MH370 objects spotted.

500N John Young referred to the conditions as moderate.

what that means i have no idea. it's pretty wild and wooly out there.

"The wings. If it flew to fuel starvation, then fuel tanks in the wings would now be air tanks and float."

It's highly unlikely that the wings would survive contact with the sea intact. Indeed, for either or both of them to be floating, they would have to have been sheared from the fuselage.

I hope I am wrong, but I don't see this being MH370 wreckage.

Buoys will be dropped to facilitate relocating the objects.

If from MH370 several days of drift will have to be accounted for to determine a search area for the FDR.

24 m = 80 feet. Ok, just an estimate. But it is a big piece of something.

He also said it was "awash". If so, the drift will be largely based on current rather than current and wind. Will help a bit estimating backtrack.

2 hours overhead only. AC sequenced to maintain continuous coverage for the rest of today. They are doing best they can do with limited assets at long range.

He also said it was a bit south of search area. That Chinese ship was also to the south I believe.

P3's have significantly more endurance than 10 hours. My guess is that they need to allow for a possible 3 eng return to Pearce due lack of alternates.

Does the orstraylian version of the P3 have the ability to take FLIR pix or photos and then upload them back to base via satellite?
I assume that if they actually spotted something in the next 2 hours of bouncing around out there, they'd be able to get a shot and send it back?

AMSA newsroom
 

The AMSA web site has just been updated with more information including a media statement.



http://www.amsa.gov.au/media/

Re the Chinese ship.

Did you notice the way the media question re the Chinese ship was deflected ?????

Also
The Chinese ship was there way before anyone else ??????
What did they know that no one else did ?

I guess they had Satellites like the US has.

Or Coast Watch DH-8's certainly do, I would be surprised if the P-3's didn't have the capability.

I suspect what's happened is that AGIO just downloaded a big dump of commercial and maybe some spysat IMINT, and set some sort of pattern recognition algorithm going on the data set.
It pops up lots of frames to examine.
That's when the experts pull them up on the huge monitors and start looking in detail.