As long as the media has fresh pretty pictures and video, fresh maps, some fact from JACC and a sensationalist slant they can run as a headline grabber that sells that day's newspapers, they are happy :O

Australia is providing plenty of fresh pretty pictures / video with plenty of aircraft, ships and people and fresh maps daily looking at what the media is running with.

VinRougeThis is correct, reading Andrew Weir, The Tombstone Imperative - The Truth About Air Safety will tell you all you need to know about saving money in the airline biz.

Perhaps you are taking the 45k figure too literally. The slant range capabilities of radar, particulary at or close to max range aren't accurate to any great degree of precision. To be off a few thousand feet would not be unusual.

A 777 pilot posted in this thread that he had attempted the manovure in a simulator and had gotten to 43,000 and he may have still had some room to go. So the claim seems perfectly valid if you take the information to mean that MH370 soared to max altitude and apparently was at least above 40,000 feet at some time between IGARI and Koto Bharu.

Media Release JACC Today 14th April AM
 

I Suppose there will be a news conference today or tomorrow. Is it worth mobilizing the people to start searching the WA coastline yet? Maybe Scout groups or Cadets or similar?

30-day interim report
 

@ Two to Tango
In the April 5 and April 7 statements (press briefings) by the pertinent Malaysian authority - in which the organization and scope of the investigation were outlined, including the designations of three committees as well as other nations as Accredited Representatives - no reference was made to the requirement of an interim report at the 30-day mark, nor to any plans regarding such report. Link to press briefings:
MH370 Flight Incident | Malaysia Airlines

Most likely, the ICAO authorities will have determined that, procedurally, the 30-day clock has been deferred or suspended, given the known facts of the incident - and given also the many unknowns. Moreover, the statements make reference, in a general way admittedly, to the one-month marker. A good and sensible ruling here would be that, by announcing the detailed structure of the investigation effort at the one-month juncture, Malaysia has substantially complied, on the facts (again, some known, many more unknown). E.g., both press briefings do make reference to ICAO standards relative to other aspects of the organization of the investigation, thus suggesting that ICAO tacitly endorses Malaysia's approach.

If anything official has been issued relative to the 30-day interim report, I plead missing it.

Apr 14 Search Areas
 

The sonobuoy portion of today's search, roughly a square 25 km on a side, is centered at roughly 26 S, 101.5 E:

http://www.jacc.gov.au/media/release...l/mr_021-4.jpg

That appears to fall on the blue arc representing the 0011 UTC "last ping" in the first set of charts published by AAIB:

http://www.inmarsat.com/wp-content/u...ern-Tracks.jpg

But it's well to the East of the other two arcs representing the 400 and 450 kt loci on the AAIB chart.

So does that mean they're de-emphasizing the inferences from Doppler?

The GAFA
 

The only way to search this coast is by choper. A foot search would be nice to clean up all the junk from the last 300 years of pollution.
North of Perth 1250km of coast line, no access, no people, no water.
A map will show 4 centres of habitation.
Geraldton pop. 35,500 because it is port but then
Kalbarri pop. 1,500 a holiday resort,
Carnarvon pop. 4,500 they grow bananas and tomatoes,
Exmouth pop 2,500 tourism.

JACC News conference at 12:00 midday Perth time
 

This link is not geo blocked

Live TV | Astro Awani

Going to stop using pinger locator and start using Bluefin 21 AUV.

He certainly laid out the time frame it takes from surface to bottom to surface and the download of data (4 hours alone !).


Oil slick sounds promising in terms of where it is. Be interesting when the results come back.

Frequency drift
 

Though mentioned several times, is it actually confirmed that the frequency will drift as the battery condition fades (voltage drop?)?

Or does the oscillator circuit simply stop working below a certain minimum voltage level?

Apr 14 Search Areas
 

Vinnie Boombatz
Today's sonobuoy search area is at/near where the Hai Xun 01 heard the pings on 05 April, and it's basically on the #7 arc.
The aerial search areas are on/near the Inmarsat 400 kt path (red) and one of the NTSB suggested paths. Overlay comparing the search areas: http://i.imgur.com/peWnXpJ.png

Interesting comment re the bottom of the sea where they are.

They have obviously looked at previous data collected years ago
and his comment about a lot of silt on the bottom.

Ocean Shield AIS data Update
 

The TPL towing is complete and the Bluefin AUV is being prepared for launching.

An updated graphic is at Post #9950

Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston says it Day 38, 'we have not had a detection in six days. It is time to go underwater.' This is 40 m old @ 1:10 am US EST from Breaking news, latest news, and current events - breakingnews.com.

Actually, you can confidently state that there will be no floating debris anywhere near the datum.

Anything that came of the wreck and floated will by now be hundreds of miles away due to ocean drift.

Any engine Lube Oil slowly leaking could well be still appearing on the surface relatively close to the aircraft's position.

How far did Angus Houston say the oil slick was found from the Ping location ?

Was it 5 1/2 kms ?'

That would be extremely close if coming up from around the 4000 meter mark at a slow but steady rate I would think!

Thanks for confirming.

Pity it will take 3 or so days to get it (the 2 litres of oil) back to port.

It will be good if it is from MH370.

While the plateau is up to 6000m deep, #9930 says it is more likely 3500-4500