Underwater recovery expert David Mearns speaks with the ABC's 7:30 Report saying he's confident crews have found the wreckage site of MH370. Courtesy ABC/7:30 Report
First mission aborted ... authorities will adjust minisub Bluefin-21’s ‘search profile’ to ensure it does not exceed its maximum operating depth again. Source: AFP Source: AFP
ONE of the world’s most experienced wreck hunters believes the crash site of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has been found and that recovering its black boxes is inevitable.
David Mearns, the director of UK-based Bluewater Recoveries said that 40 days after the Boeing 777-200ER went missing, search teams had finally found their target.“I think essentially they have found the wreckage site,” Mearns told the ABC’s 7.30 program last night.
“While the Government hasn’t announced that yet, if somebody asked me: ‘Technically, do they have enough information to say that?’ My answer is unequivocally ‘Yes’.”
Mr Mearns’ comments echo the announcement by Prime Minister Tony Abbott last Friday that the search area for the plane had been narrowed down.
He found the wreck of the HMAS Sydney in the Indian Ocean in 2008, almost seven decades after it sank in 1941 with 645 sailors on-board following an engagement with the German cruiser Kormoran.
He was awarded an honorary Order of Australia for his work.
He also helped in finding the wreckage of Air France flight 447 and said the strength of the sonar pings from the plane’s black boxes indicated the search team looking for the aircraft had found its target.
Finding black box ‘inevitable’ ... David Mearns of Bluewater Recoveries. Source: News Limited
“You just don’t hear these signals randomly in the ocean. These are not fleeting sounds — they have got four very, very good detections, with the right spectrum of noise coming from them. It can’t be from anything else,” Mr Mearns said.
However, Mr Mearns expressed caution that the Bluefin-21 minisub scanning the oceanfloor for the Boeing 777-200ER, which disappeared on March 8 about one hour into a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing carrying 239 passengers and crew, could take weeks or months to recover the black boxes.
The minisub is hunting for the missing aircraft in a 60km by 40km stretch of the southern Indian Ocean, 2200km northwest of Perth. Mr Mearns said he understood the reluctance of search authorities, led by retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, to confirm the plane had been found.
“Obviously for the sake of the families and for everybody else they will want photographic proof and that will be coming shortly,” Mr Mearns said.
He told 7.30 the key breakthrough in locating the missing aircraft was made during the analysis of MH370’s flight path.
“Somewhere out of some place, fantastic pieces of intelligence were put together to really narrow it down to a small, small area,” he said.
“And that’s how these guys have been able to find it so quickly.
“The Ocean Shield was out there a couple of days and they got a hit. That has been a tremendous success and miraculous. People were searching for a miracle. This was one.”
Plan B ... the JACC has drawn up contingency plans to replace Bluefin-21 with another minisub capable of descending to greater depths if required. Source: AFP
UNDERWATER SEARCH RESUMES
The underwater search for MH370 has hit another setback with Bluefin-21’s second mission cut short due to a technical problem.
The robotic vehicle was forced to resurface this morning and while the issue was being fixed data was collected.
Initial analysis showed no significant detections and it has since been redeployed.
The Bluefin-21 was deployed again after its first day of operation failed to find any objects of interest.
The first mission was cut short when Bluefin-21 exceeded its limit of 4,500m and the in-built safety feature kicked in, bringing it to the surface.
Data from the six-hour sweep was later downloaded and analysed.
Up to 14 aircraft and 11 ships will be part of today’s search effort just over 2,000 kilometres northwest of Perth.
Isolated rain showers are predicted, with sea swells of up to two metres.
The Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre said the first mission in the underwater search was aborted, 10 hours short of its scheduled time, because waters in parts of the search area were too deep for the vessel.
“This unexpected condition resulted in an automatic mission abort,” a JACC spokesman said.
The US Navy said last night that an analysis of data collected by the Bluefin-21 had revealed “no objects of interest”.
“The vehicle was recovered and six hours’ worth of data downloaded.
“The data was analysed and no objects of interest were found,” the US Navy said.
Authorities said they would adjust the minisub’s ‘search profile’ to ensure it didn’t exceed its maximum operating depth again.
It is estimated it will take sonar-equipped Bluefin-21 six week to two months to scan the entire search area.
As the search for the missing aircraft, which disappeared on March 8 with 239 passengers and crew about one hour into a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, enters its 40th day, authorities also continued to analyse an oil slick found in the search area.
JACC co-ordinator Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston said on Monday that two litres of oil were sent to shore for analysis. It is expected to be a several days before it can be conclusively tested to show whether or not it belongs to MH370.
CONSPIRACY THEORY
US authorities were also forced to take the extraordinary step of denying they were involved in a cover-up of the missing airliner’s disappearance.
Persistent rumours on the internet and social media suggest MH370 has been hidden on the US Indian Ocean military base at Diego Garcia.
“This is a baseless conspiracy theory that has already been debunked around the world, and the White House Press Secretary specifically addressed this on March 18,” a press attaché at the US Embassy in Malaysia said in an email to the New Straits Times newspaper.
‘Flying in the dark’ ... minisubs are not very good when it comes to providing fine scale details of the ocean floor, according to marine geologist Robin Beaman. Source: AFP
WHAT NEXT?
The JACC has drawn up contingency plans to replace Bluefin-21 with another minisub capable of descending to greater depths if required.
James Cook University marine geologist Dr Robin Beaman said whichever minisub was ultimately used would “basically be flying in the dark”.
“It’s a very poorly mapped area, there is nothing apart from very old surveys,” he said.
“They are not very good when it comes to providing fine scale details (of the ocean bottom), which is what they really need to help the search.”
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