Pace - "Throwing in the towel" is NOT what has been stated, by either PM Tony Abbott or by Angus Houston.

The actual statement from Houston, and repeated by Abbott, was - "If we don't find wreckage, we stop, we regroup, we reconsider".

This is not, "throwing in the towel".

In other media statements, Houston is reported as outlining that, "much larger", and deeper-diving, equipment may be needed.

"They are being looked at as we speak," he said, adding that partners in the international search will need to discuss "who has the capabilities to do this work" at such depths.

In other words, a re-assessment will be carried out within days, on how best to approach the finding of the wreckage, now that the pinger has ceased and the Bluefin-21 is proving to be incapable of operating at the required depths.

What is going to be discussed, no doubt, is that the only people with the ability and equipment to carry out a successful search for MH370 wreckage, are private contractors such as Woods Hole and Bluewater Recoveries.

These people cost serious amounts of money, and I think the only thing that is really going to be discussed at length, is just which countries are going to fund the hiring of WH and BR - and what percentages each country is going to contribute to the bill for the hiring in of WH and BR.

One track

I appreciate what you are saying above with one caveat!! For any search to be carried out at such considerable depth the searchers have to be pretty confident that the wreckage is in the confines of quite a small area.
Even with that certainty it will be like finding a needle in a haystack.

There is still no evidence that this relatively small area holds the wreckage.

If this is a clutching at straws location which looks more and more likely then the game is over.

Frankly a politician saying we need to regroup, reconsider or whatever is a pre warning that they have run out of reasonable options and a withdrawal is likely

Are you sure that he did not only refer to the search for wreckage on the surface? I highly doubt that they would stop the underwater search this quickly, when they continued for almost two years in the case of AF447.

i,m unfortunetly with pace here. we have to remember the ships cannot stay at the search area forever - they need fuel, supllies and a change in the crews which work 24/7 and surely start to get fatigued. so when they find nothing in the next days i guess all ships will return to harbour and then it will be a political decision what to do next.

i do not think they will officially stop "searching" , but this search may be reduced to satellite tracking, further calculations on the handshakes and waiting if somebody finds somekind of debris somewhere. i guess the enormous effort in keeping ships at sea and conducting a 24/7 underwater search as well sending aircraft every day will stop .

we have to rember that the australians have a life beyond this aircraft and somebody might ask if its not better in long term to spend this amount of tax money in schools than in keeping up the search when its obvious no lifes can be saved anymore.

whatever happens - i have deepest respect for this just 23millions citizens country since it prooved it is willing and able to conduct and lead an extremly difficult task no man performed ever before , and everything which can be done was and is done .

aerobat:

Aerobat, this isn't a domestic expenditure matter. And it won't be Australia's decision whether to continue with the search. Add to that several very important diplomatic relationships involved. Any who were to "ask" that question would be comprehensively (and rightly) ignored.

Not entirely sure what is meant by "domestic expenditure matter". What is certain is that Australia has contributed well beyond its SAR obligations here and the time will most certainly come when those who do have a direct interest, ie Malaysia, US and China, will have to decide on what comes next and more importantly who pays the bills.

Aus has done well out of this diplomatically, but the law of diminishing returns applies and I'd say that the Aus contribution will be substantially scaled back come "time to regroup, reconsider" or whatever.

No, it is not nearly as bad as that.
A definite ULB signal was received. This means the search area can be narrowed very considerably within the radius of ULB audibility. No, it's not the size of Texas, more like a few hundred km2 at most. The Bluefin is supposed to be able to scan 40km2/day so if it Bluefin can't find it within a few weeks, then this probably means that it is beyond the capabilities of the AUV. A rethink of how to scan the search area, and maybe using bigger and better hardware is appropriate.

The only fear I have is that something else was mistaken for the ULB signal. This seems very unlikely, but given that it has stopped, it still a worry.

With all this doubt on whether the ULB pings were from the MH370 ULB. would it be an idea to modulate the ping with an aircraft/equipment ID? This would be extremely simple circuitry which would take little power but would stop these guessing games. The ping would then be indisputably from a particular aircraft and definitely not a 'natural' source.

While there's been some serious doubt about the equipment the chinese have been showing to be of much use in this situation at all, I don't think there's much debate about what the TPL has been detecting. Not many natural 37.5 kHz sources out there (short of being trolled by a dolphin :rolleyes:).

In a BBC Radio 4 interview a couple of days ago, the commanding officer of HMS Echo said the search area had been localised to 10 miles by 5 miles. Assuming nautical miles, that is about 172km2.

Annex 12 implying Annex 13
 

In the law, typically there are mandatory processes, as well as processes undertaken for prudential reasons. I note this in the context of posts and discussion about whether the ICAO Annex 13 30-day interim report process is applicable, and more broadly whether Annex 13 even applies in the first place.

To suggest a different perspective: the unprecedented scope and means of the still on-going SAR appears certain to result in an examination of existing Annex 12 terms, conditions and implementation agreements. At least it is reasonable to state this result is likely if not certain (only ICAO speaks for ICAO).

But with Annex 12-related proceedings (reasonably) assumed to take place, suggest it would be very prudential for Malaysia to continue with the Annex 13 enquiry it has commenced - EVEN IF facts emerge which take the incident outside the narrowly-read ambit of Annex 13. That is, keep going with the Annex 13 panel of Accredited Representatives and committees designated by the Malaysian authorities. Though many facts remain unknown, do we not, in truth, know that this incident not only is unprecedented but also that it ultimately will hold large significance for civil aeronautics globally? Does not an Annex 13 proceeding - precisely as Malaysia has commenced - approach, or perhaps constitute, an optimum process for finding facts and articulating lessons to be learned?

In other words about the same size as the island of Jersey.

Quite a big area to lose a ULB on its own but small enough not to lose an entire aircraft, or most of its wreckage.

My thoughts are that OS & Echo have pretty much localised the search area.
The 21 fish could not originally access the area due to depth constraints [ie <4500m].
They have over come this not through 'certification' but by trialing the fish deeper.

The best way of describing marine salvage is as -

"A science of vague assumptions based on debatable figures taken from inconclusive experiments and performed with instruments of problematic accuracy by persons of doubtful reliability and questionable mentality".

Let the experts do what they know best.

From the Sydney Morning Herald: "A survey by Malaysia's leading independent polling firm released earlier this week found that only 26 per cent of Malaysians believed the government was being transparent about MH370"

It would be reasonable to assume that those 26% don't actually believe that the Malaysian government is, or has been, forthcoming about events concerning MH370, but represent the hard core supporters of the government who also support the obfucation of MH370 information.

I hope the agreement between Australia and Malaysia regarding responsability for any recovered items would leave Austrailia as the recipiant of the FDR. Otherwise this whole SAR effort would be seen as pointless by 74% of Malaysians and many others (including the Chinese family members and myself.)

@willowRun 6-3
Annex 12 applies in case of emergency and immédiate threat against a person.

"A science of vague assumptions based on debatable figures taken from inconclusive experiments and performed with instruments of problematic accuracy by persons of doubtful reliability and questionable mentality".

Love the Quote! glad clinical trials are not run on those assumptions!:8

Not being forthcoming with everything that curious people want to know is not the same thing as "obfuscation".

A classic example occurred in the past few days. A report emerged that the co-pilot's phone had connected to a tower in Malaysia. The journalist concerned characterised this as an attempt by the co-pilot to make a call, which is a different thing again. The Malaysia Transport Minister was asked if the report were true, and replied to the effect that he didn't know, but that in any case it would be a matter for the police, and that they would release such information if and when they saw fit. People on this forum then characterised that as a "denial" of the original report by the Malaysia Transport Minister, which it manifestly wasn't.

So, was there witholding of information here? Yes, by the Malaysia Police it seems, and there seems no reasonable grounds for criticising them for it. Was there obfuscation here? No. Was there confusion, speculation, general silliness? Yes, by a journalist and members of this forum...

Need to Know
 

CNN reports Malaysia states now aircraft climbed to 39000 over Malaysia after initial turn. That means the aircraft had to then descend to altitude close enough that tower could read an 'on' phone and then to 5000' (lost radar contact point) as previously stated by Malaysia. An unusual turn, an unusual climb, and an unusual descent is not exactly trying to stay off the radar (if someone had been looking).

ADIRU failure once again?
 

In 2005, a Malaysian Airlines B777-200 (9M-MRG) was on a flight from Perth to Kuala Lumpur when it experienced a failure of its navigation system. The airplane suddenly climbed to FL410, then dropped 4000 feet, then climbed 2000 feet. The pilots flew the airplane manually back to Perth. Australian authorities investigated the incident. They determined that the failure was in the "operating software of the air data inertial reference unit (ADIRU), a device that supplies acceleration figures to the aircraft's flight computer." The device was manufactured by Honeywell and contained the fourth version of the operating system. A review of the software showed that the error did exist on the first three versions of the software, but had been suppressed by other features of the software. These other features were removed during the transition from the third version to the fourth version.

The problem was serious enough for the FAA to issue an emergency airworthiness directive in August 2005 to all B777 operators to revert to version three of the operating system.

Note that the airplane lost on March 8, 2014, was 9M-MRO, apparently a sister ship.

YYZjim wrote,
One of the most relevant post I've seen after a long time and most probably you have hit the nail imho.