Breaking news
 

Chinese ship detects signal

China's Search Vessel Picks up Pulse Signal in South Indian Ocean

Note that the CVR which had been written off as of no use, may be considerably useful IFF someone was flying the aircraft and talking to themselves.

Haven't seen an update on the AMSA site yet, just the AM update, but this was posted about 20min. prior to the news article on the signal detection (lacking details):

Chinese Air Force Plane Spots New Floating Objects in South Indian Ocean

Tip-off from another underwater source?
 

I hope this 37.5 signal is confirmed and leads to discovery of the plane. Scepticism seems churlish and unfriendly at this point.
The doubts with regard to range of the signal may not take into account the possibility of other floating wreckage having been spotted, or the signal having been detected initially by some other unknown equipment on/deployed from chinese ships, leading to to this vessel being sent to the location to confirm the detection.

About 1 hour over, no reserve calculated. I have no idea what fuel they were carrying, and interestingly i haven't read any public report of what their fuel reserves were. I understand the speed used for the search calculation are higher, and at a commensurately higher burn rate, than typical cruise.

Interestingly, the search areas they are looking at today are even further north than the chinese coordinates reported .

37.5Khz signal.
 

It was reported that it lasted for only 90 seconds. Three crew members heard this signal but could not make a recording as they were surprised by the signal!! Hope its not another false hope.

If the Chinese received a signal - why were they looking between the designated search areas? Either the search is still not coordinated and every nation does what it wants or there are other informations available to them.

And why did the signal last 90s?

Warnings and alarms going off in the cockpit would also be of some use I would think.

some encouraging news ?
 

Chinese search patrol vessel picks up (hears) a ''ping'' pulse signal (reportedly the same 37.5Khz frequency as used by a FDR black box) sadly NOT recorded by them as it took them by surprise in the South Indian Ocean some 2/3 degrees south of the Australian search area they made yesterday

''if'' this proves to be a positive pulse I.D it narrows the search area down from 85,000 to 10 square miles - the undersea floor topography profile in that region is mountain ranges - any recovery of wreckage if this is the crash site by ROV will be challenging but viable

SOPS
If the MAS flight MH370 Boeing 777 had crashed in that region then any floating small wreckage will be soon reaching the shores of Western Australia due the prevailing weather and sea conditions

Time to get the Royal Navy up there quick with our sub HMS Tireless to confirm the pulse signal?

Is there anything else that might have generated the signal?

With all the ships in that sea, might not a ship have generated the 90 sec pulse?

90 seconds?
 

If the ULB is working properly and is 'pinging' once a second then a chain of 90 pings suggests that if this is MH370, they are dragging their microphone on the outer edge of a dome centred on the ULB.

I know that turning is a ball ache when towing such equipment but the common sense thing to do is run back along the track with the microphone much lower in the water.

I assume they have done/are doing this.

It might just be coincidental but HMS Astute left Gibraltar early last week en-route the Suez canal. It is the first boat of the class replacing the T class sub force. It has the 2076 sonar plus more.

Twitter
 

JTwitter ID James Chau ‏@jameschau
#exclusive My source: 37.5 kHz bang on, BUT indicates signal detected 4 only 15 mins. If #MH370 why nt longer? #breaking

‏@jameschau his colleague is aboard the ship who reported the pings.

Ahhhhmmmmmm

If you were on a boat searching for pings on 37.5 and you started receiving them, maybe you would think about...

STOPPING THE BOAT

Is there something with to do with thermal layers that could stop signals from reaching the surface or whatever depth they were towing their sonar array at?

Why would they only receive the ping signal for 15 mins, a month after the plane went down?

Something is not right here. It doesn't make sense to me.

Lompasso

37.5 is a frequency that was deliberately chosen because there is very little naturally occurring sources in the ocean anywhere near that frequency.

As for other ships accidentally generating that frequency - it is extremely unlikely.

xman80

What do you think happens when you stop towing a weight behind a ship? No wonder it doesn't make sense to you.

Underwater Mountains
 

Looking at seabed topography picture from PortVale (post #9268) transmission signal could be shielded by underwater peaks with a 90s gap.

ULB Battery Due Date
 

Just on CNN:

The MAS CEO declared during a press conference that the FDR / CVR - ULB maintenance records indicate that the ULB battery due date is June 2014.

That would imply that these batteries should have been replaced during scheduled maintenance in an A-check at around this time or in the next month or so if the aircraft was still in service to avoid the battery expiring between scheduled maintenance intervals.

Reported onboard says they first detected the signals as late as friday.

Yet the Malaysians gave their official press conference just a few hours ago and not a whiff of it.

And this Chinese ship is apparently way outside the international joint "co-ordinated" search area.

There's a serious solo run going on here.

rog747;
Surely time to send in a P3 to drop some sonobuoys?

Also;
Perhaps time to calculate the drift current and dispatch an aircraft to hi-res image potential shore line for debris?