Can people not read news stories!!.....
Retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, who is leading the international search effort, said the pulse signals are characteristic of an aircraft black box.
"I have been advised that a series of sounds have been detected by a Chinese ship in the search area," he said in a statement this morning."The characteristics reported are consistent with the aircraft black box.
"A number of white objects were also sighted on the surface about 90 kilometres from the detection area."
"However, there is no confirmation at this stage that the signals and the objects are related to the missing aircraft."


Why are people still speculating that the Chinese were out there doing their own thing and conducting their own search in another area?!!!! :ugh:

According to ABC news 24 the discovery was made from 'rubber ducky' (their words) with a hydrophone! :eek:

And if they were underway, right at the edge of the reception area, that would explain the signal disappearing after 15 minutes, or 90 seconds.

Interestingly the AMSA "planned" search area for today (6/4) hasn't moved towards the 101e 25s location much if at all.

Not sure how far in advance they plan these areas.

http://i.imgur.com/tisLf7S.jpg

Howard Hughes I don't think that's correct at all... I've been watching ABC News 24 since early this morning here in Sydney, and at no time have I heard the term "rubber ducky" used at all. In the below article on their website it clearly states;

PHOTO: Chinese patrol ship Haixun 01 scours the Indian Ocean in the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. (Reuters: China News Service)

MAP: Australia

Malaysia Airlines MH370: Tony Abbott urges caution after Chinese ship detects pulse in southern Indian Ocean - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

JSmith

Obects spotted in search area....
 

"White floating objects were spotted Saturday by a Chinese military aircraft in remote southern Indian Ocean west of Perth, Chinese military sources said.
The crew of a Chinese Ilyushin IL-76 plane spotted numerous white floating objects in about 20 minutes starting from 11:05 local time and took pictures of them."


Pic here: Chinese aircraft spots new floating objects in search of MH370 - Headlines, features, photo and videos from ecns.cn|china|news|chinanews|ecns|cns
(taken 5 April 2014)

White objects STILL cannot be confirmed as MH370 as per my PR last night....

More coming..

Abc.net.au

Speaking well. Finally a non idiot speaking sense.

I suspect (and so far it is) just a way of shutting down idiot speculation.

'We must be aware of the effect on relatives' etc etc

' rest assured every single possible lead will be fully explored and updates will be provided'

More of same. Taking questions...

Interestingly before the PC, it was being discussed why the Chinese were well outside the search area and had picked up signals that the west didn't think they had the capabilities to do - inference, what have they got that they haven't been sharing....

Looks like they seem very interested in what the Chinese found, but do not want anyone jumping at shadows...

Angus Houston says first detection was a short detection 36 hours ago, the Chinese ship then came to the area to stay in the area. Yesterday afternoon was when the second detection was made, which was a longer detection than the first.

So all this about the Chinese "running their own race" is just media speculation...

I don't know about that - he's deliberately not saying anything, and that sounds like they have put the Chinese "acoustic event" at the bottom of the list they have already programmed to search.

HMS Echo - is 14 hours away from 25s 101e and

Ocean Shield is investigation "another" acoustic event (that was only heard 1 hour ago), and is at least 24 hours away, and 27 hours before they could start searching, if they decide to abandon the "event" they are currently investigating.

HMAS Ocean Shield has picked up a detection 90 mins ago...

I find it interesting that it is only the Chinese supposedly finding objects and that one of their ships had got a ping. Could this be a ploy to keep the search from being scaled back by other country's.

Indeed. Which I thought was a lot more professional than journo's discussing alien abductions etc.

I think it was a case of 'we have this stuff to confirm, it's been almost 24 hours we are doing the best we can - don't jump at shadows'

I hope I didn't miss the gist of anything significant, I was listening and typing on different screens and couldn't do both at the same time (ipad).

I've been stuck in hotel rooms not able to get news before which is frustrating. Nice to return the favour I have received from others in the past.....

for those who can't pick up live stream...
 

Malaysia Airlines MH370: Tony Abbott urges caution after Chinese ship detects pulse in southern Indian Ocean

Prime Minister Tony Abbott says searchers are "hopeful but by no means certain" that a pulse signal detected by a Chinese ship in the Indian Ocean is related to missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

Mr Abbott has urged caution following the most recent finding in a trail of disappointing leads to date.

"We need to be very careful about coming to hard and fast conclusions too soon," he said.

"This is the most difficult search in human history. We are searching for an aircraft which is at the bottom of a very deep ocean and it is a very, very wide search area."

Malaysia Airlines MH370: Tony Abbott urges caution after Chinese ship detects pulse in southern Indian Ocean - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Western ship just picked up a ping
 

Per the press conference, a western ship (Ocean Shield) picked up an acoustic signal about 90 minutes ago and is slowly turning around (with 6km of cable trailing) to try to sort it out. No more details.

It is not in the same area (I think 300 mi apart).

These were just characterized as "fleeting acoustic events."

There is also aircraft sighted debris somewhere in the search area that ships are being dispatched to investigate.

Not just Chinese, an Australian ship has also found a ping in another location farther north (they were a little vague on exactly where it is).

Assuming they rule out the Northern ping, they will meet with chinese ship at the southern ping location, which is also in the newly adjusted 'most likely' area.

You are assuming that the different boxes have to be in the same place..

Another acoustic event reported in the last 90 minutes at another location being investigated by ADV Ocean Shield. The Chinese events were 24 hours apart within 2 km of each other, the new event is not in the same area.

New INMARSAT data indicate that the southern search area off OZ is more probable than the others on the south leg. The airspeed of MH 370 may have been greater than earlier calculated increasing the probability that the plane ditched near the signals detected by the Chinese vessel Haixun 01.

I agree, Angus Houston is the real deal as a leader giving the briefing.

But he did confirm that the Chinese ship WAS and IS working in the defined search area!

Widely separated ping detects, and probabilities
 

It is pretty hard to come up with a likely scenario that separates the boxes by 300mi. Possible, but pretty unlikely.

Angus Houston is pretty clear that these detects are iffy. However, he also said that these pings are the most promising leads so far. According to the CNN correspondent, the latest, refined satellite-based estimates target the same narrower area as where the pings were heard.

I believe these devices simply emit an unmodulated, short burst of 37.5khz energy. This is not a highly distinct signal, especially if it is very weak and thus corrupted by a lot of noise. Perhaps someone with more knowledge can comment on the nature of these "pings."

A comment... these ULB pings are unrelated to the satellite pings. The satellite pings are request/response transmission pairs. The ULB pings are just bleeps emitted periodically by the ULB.

Its a continuous tone, but it's getting weaker every day as the batteries run down, and if a ship is underway it could well just pick the signal up for a few minutes as it passed by the edge of reception.