By Lucy Craymer
PERTH, Australia— The underwater search of the seabed for debris from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is expected to take less time than the previously forecast 6 weeks to 2 months, due to analysis of acoustic data.
The underwater search area had been significantly narrowed through the detailed acoustic analysis conducted on the four signal detections made by the Towed Pinger Locator on ADV Ocean Shield, Australia’s Joint Agency Coordination Centre, which is leading the multinational search operation, said in a statement.
The search effort’s primary goal remains recovering the Boeing 777′s “black box” flight-data and cockpit-voice recorders. However, authorities in charge of the recovery operation decided earlier this week to move to the U.S Navy’s Bluefin-21 underwater submersible as it seemed increasingly likely the batteries powering emergency locators on the “black boxes” were dead and devices looking for “pings” would be useless.
The submersible is targeting an area where a black box locator device last week picked up the strongest in a series of electronic signals that authorities believe may have come from the missing plane.
Furthermore, the agency said had been decided that the Bluefin-21–which it is recommended to go to a depth of 4500 meters—would be allowed to operate in excess of this to aid with the search.
Earlier this week the submersible had returned to surface just 6 hours into its first mission after it reached its operating depth limit of about 3 miles, and a built-in safety feature forced it to ascend.
Authorities added that oil from an oil slick found near the current search area had been tested but found to be neither airline engine oil or hydraulic liquid.
Source: Top Stories - Google News - http://ift.tt/1eD9MT9
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