Search and recovery continues for Malaysian flight MH370

Media Release
17 April 2014—am
Up to ten military aircraft, two civil aircraft and 11 ships will assist in today's search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
Today the Australian Maritime Safety Authority has planned a visual search area totalling approximately 40,349 square kilometres. The centre of the search areas lies approximately 2,170 kilometres north west of Perth.
Overnight Bluefin-21 AUV completed a full mission in the search area and is currently planning for its next mission. Bluefin-21 has searched approximately 90 square kilometres to date and the data from its latest mission is being analysed.
The oil sample collected by Ocean Shield has now arrived in Perth and will be subject to detailed testing and analysis. We will provide details of the results when they become available.
The weather forecast for today is isolated showers and south easterly winds.

The density of seawater is a nonlinear function of salinity, temperature, and pressure.

Density, pressure
 

For the purposes of estimating safe pressures, the density of sea water is virtually constant (variation ~1%), and thus the pressure is mostly linear with depth.

The small variations in density in the ocean are significant in ocean mass flows (such as thermo-haline circulations) and in sound propagation.

Our PM says we have a week and then it will be pull back, re group
and have a think about what to do next.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 search rethink within a week, says Prime Minister Tony Abbott | News.com.au

According to the founder of IGHAR, the Bluefin-21 is an unreliable item of equipment and the Aussies are better advised to find something more reliable and more capable, to use in the search.
The simple fact that it's being used in waters that could be 6000M deep, when its effective safe operating depth is 4500M, seems to indicate to me that it's a no-brainer to go find some other ROV with much better depth capabilities.

Plane search rethink 'within a week' | Sky News Australia

Third mission
 

After the two previous failures, the third search mission by Bluefin 21 was successfully completed.

No results as yet.




Robot submarine makes first complete search for MH370 - The Times of India

Bluefin or ...
 

Whether Bluefin-21 is reliable, unreliable or whether there are better assets out there ...

I'm sure JACC has been talking to anyone and everyone with an ROV capable of going south of 4500m but these things cost lots of money and have to earn their keep and aren't just sitting around waiting for an interesting looking task to get stuck into.

Update on search for flight MH370

Media Release
17 April 2014—pm
At the recent media conference conducted by the Chief Coordinator of the Joint Agency Coordination Centre, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston (Ret'd), said that the Australian Defence Vessel Ocean Shield had detected an oil slick on Sunday evening in her current search area.
Preliminary analysis of the sample collected by ADV Ocean Shield has confirmed that it is not aircraft engine oil or hydraulic fluid.
Additionally, Phoenix International, with the assistance of Bluefin, have assessed that there is a small but acceptable level of risk in operating the vehicle in depths in excess of 4,500 metres. This expansion of the operating parameters allows the Bluefin-21 to search the sea floor within the predicted limits of the current search area.
Some media reports today state that it would take Bluefin-21 anywhere from six weeks to two months to scan the entire underwater search area. This is incorrect.
Since the US Navy provided comment some days ago, the underwater search has been significantly narrowed through detailed acoustic analysis conducted on the four signal detections made by the Towed Pinger Locator on ADV Ocean Shield.
This analysis has allowed the definition of a reduced and more focused underwater search area. This represents the best lead we have in relation to missing flight MH370 and where the current underwater search efforts are being pursued to their completion so we can either confirm or discount the area as the final resting place of MH370.

Sorry if this has been addressed before, but I have followed these pages hourly and I haven't been able to find more details regarding this recently made statement.

"Since the US Navy provided comment some days ago, the underwater search has been significantly narrowed through detailed acoustic analysis conducted on the four signal detections made by the Towed Pinger Locator on ADV Ocean Shield.
This analysis has allowed the definition of a reduced and more focused underwater search area. This represents the best lead we have in relation to missing flight MH370 and where the current underwater search efforts are being pursued to their completion so we can either confirm or discount the area as the final resting place of MH370."

I just want to understand what new analysis has led to the statement released and now why has the underwater search been "significantly narrowed" and has resulted in a "reduced and more focused underwater search area".

Is this confirmation that "this detailed acoustic analysis" indicates a more sophisticated method has managed to triangulate to a more accurate position to be searched?

I certainly hope so....

No doubt this post will be deleted, judging by history :{

OleOle . . .
 

ICAO only promulgates international standards and recommended practices; can neither make nor enforce "laws." Compliance rests with individual states.

The information has not been made public.

Lithium Ion batteries packed and handled correctly are not a hazard.

"Lithium Ion batteries packed and handled correctly are not a hazard"


I would add that 'Non defective' Lithium Ion batteries packed and handled correctly are not a hazard. Experience in other applications has show that manufacturing problems can cause issues. Another unknown to add to the list.

The point of correct packing and handling is that defective batteries with cells short circuiting and going rogue (not normally possible when not in a circuit) are isolated and do not cause any other batteries to fail.

From the news today...
"In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, Mr Abbott said if the Bluefin-21 underwater drone scanning the Indian Ocean's seabed in the search area fails to locate wreckage, a rethink would have to take place.

"We believe that search will be completed within a week or so," Mr Abbott said.

further on...

"We were very hopeful the Bluefin-21 would be the answer - the way to search for this very hard to find wreckage.
"What we found was the Bluefin-21 couldn't perform reliably.
"We had extremely frustrating aborted missions, just as we have seen in the Indian Ocean.
"We saw malfunctions."
Mike Dean, the US Navy's deputy director for salvage and diving, told CNN one of its Orion-towed search systems was available in Maryland for use in the search if Australia requested it.

The Orion can send back real-time data to searchers.

Other search experts say a REMUS 6000 autonomous underwater vehicle, used to find Air France flight 447 after it went down in 2009, would be more suitable."

They have a REMUS 6000 on board the OS. It has a working depth of 6000m.
Not sure of the way it is equipped, but this fish can also carry the sidescan, multi-beam, sub-bottom, and video array. Same sort of programming.

Both fish are around $2.5 million each.

Given the realtively narrow search path of these fish, it would seem a towed array would be better, not sure why they decided to switch.

OleOle . . .

I know this is going to sound strange, but anyway:

ICAO Annex 13 requires a Preliminary Report be produced within 30 days after the date of an accident. Annex 13 defines an "accident" as an occurrence in which there has been either a) fatality or serious injury, b) serious structural failure or damage to an aircraft or c) the aircraft is missing or completely inaccessible. (The full definition is longer, but that's the sense.)

The Notes to the Definitions in Annex 13 state that "an aircraft is considered to be missing when the official search has been terminated and the wreckage has not been located".

Clearly the search has not been terminated, and there is no actual physical evidence as yet of death, serious injury, or serious structural failure or damage. So it seems to me that, for the purposes of Annex 13, there is at the moment no "accident". The AF447 situation was different in that, although the search for the recorders went on for 2 years, bodies and wreckage were found within days, hence establishing beyond doubt that an accident had occurred under both options (a) & (b) above.

I know that seems odd, and "common sense" argues that an accident (in the general use of the term) has occurred to MH370, but the drafters of Annex 13 clearly saw fit not to define an overdue aircraft as "missing" and thus an "accident" for the purposes of investigation and reporting until the search for it is abandoned.

It therefore looks to me as though a report is not yet required, so the investigators have not discarded any requirement.

In regards to David Mearns comments:

In a typical search situation, you would be mapping the bottom with towed arrays. You get a wide area of coverage, with decent resolution. Hopefully, they were towing multi-beam sidescan and magnetometer.
The results are then analyzied and 'targets' of value are determined.

The next step would be to send down the AUV or the ROV to look at each target.

At this depth, it would take the ROV about 8 hours to descend to each target. The surface ship would have to stay stationary above the target when using the ROV.

With the AUV, they can program the different target locations, and the fish will fly to each and map it. As noted the descent time is about 3 hours, but once at depth, it can cover multiple sites, then surface.

I believe Mearns optimism is based on the simple fact that they were mowing the lawn, then switched to the AUV, signalling a change in search methodology. Since the AUV is not meant to cover a large search area, it would be assumed that they have found some specific targets to look at.
If you hear about them deploying the ROV, you can be assured they have located the aircraft.

About searching: Depending on the minerology, and depth of sediment, these can provide all sorts of false readings on a sidescan and/or the mag.
I see quite a bit of marine traffic crossing the search path, with a lot of shipping containers. In rough seas, these vessels drop containers all the time, another way to acquire false positives while scanning.

Chinese Deep-Sea Submersible Jialong
 

Malaysia airliner search points up China's technology gap - latimes.com

"Chinese officials might be worried about getting the submersible to the search area. Its mother ship, the Facing the Red Sun No. 9, built in 1978, has had engine problems and is unreliable."

Probably a trait shared with other nations' deep divers -- not part of a rapid deployment force.

underfire:

Is that a typo? I've not seen that information anywhere. Do you have a source?

It seems that if they had a REMUS-6000, they would be using it, given what they now know about the water depth.

In fact Annex 13 would not apply anyway (cf 9/11), if the wreckage and recorders were to be found and if it transpired that the fate of MH370 was the result of a deliberate act by a person or persons on board.

HMS Echo
 

From the marinetraffic.com data it appears that HMS Echo is conducting a survey as they are travelling in a pattern around, as well as in, the search area. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Echo_(H87)

Anyone here knows what, and what the resolution of the survey might be?