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MH370 search: "We have pursued every possible lead presented to us at this stage"
Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said the search is at a “very critical juncture”.
3.29pm, 19 Apr 2014
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THE EFFORT TO find missing flight MH370 is at a “very critical juncture”, Malaysia’s transport minister said today as authorities mull whether to reassess a challenging search of the Indian Ocean seabed that has so far found nothing.
“The search for today and tomorrow is at a very critical juncture. So I appeal for everybody around the world to pray and pray hard that we find something to work on,” Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said.
Malaysia was already in discussions with private companies on the possible use of more deep-sea vessels if the mini-submarine currently searching the ocean floor fails to make a breakthrough, Hishammuddin added.
The Boeing 777, which vanished on March 8 carrying 239 people, is believed to have crashed in deep remote waters far off Western Australia, though no trace of it has been found.
The Australian-led search effort is relying on a single US Navy submersible sonar scanning device to scour an uncharted seabed at depths of around 4,500 metres (15,000 feet) or more.
Hitches
Technical hitches, including the fact that the torpedo-shaped Bluefin-21 is operating at the extent of its depth limit, have made for a slow-going operation.
Launched from an Australian naval vessel, the device has so far made six deep-sea scanning runs but has detected nothing.
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Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Thursday set a one-week deadline to locate the plane using the sub.
“We have pursued every possible lead presented to us at this stage, and with every passing day the search has become more difficult,” Hishammuddin, who is heading up the Malaysian government’s response to MH370, told reporters in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday.
Deeper-diving devices
As the search and rescue effort — expected to be the costliest in aviation history — wears on, authorities have indicated alternative methods may be needed, including deeper-diving devices.
Hishammuddin reiterated this, saying adjustments “may include widening the scope of the search” and adding the number of deep-sea sonar vessels from commercial entities such as oil companies.
He stressed the search would not be abandoned.
“By Monday, I feel we will be in a better position to see what needs to be done,” he said.
As for today and tomorrow, we will use the assets that are already available there and pray that something positive comes out. And if that happens, that planning which I detailed to you, will not be required.
On Saturday up to 11 military aircraft and 12 ships were searching for the plane, Australia’s Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) said, with a visual search being carried out over a total area of 50,200 (19,400) square kilometres.
The Bluefin-21 has so far scoured 133 square kilometres of the ocean floor and was carrying out its seventh mission, it added.
They landed a man on the moon in the 60′s, you can track planes with an app on your phone, you can ask your phone a question and it will reply to you with the answer, yet they say they cant find a massive plane filled with passengers equipped with all the latest technology. Strange!
They did. If they didn’t, the Soviets would certainly have exposed any hoax. They didn’t. It was never disputed. Today there is a reflective sheet left on the moon by astronauts that allows scientists to measure its distance by beaming a laser at it.
The apollo astronauts left a mirror on the moon that they bounce lasers off all the time. They use this to judge the speed the moon is receeding from the earth at. It’s the best proof man walked on the moon.
Who are “they” and if “they” are up there who’s controlling down here and if down here is actually real why are we so clueless as to what’s going on and if what’s going on is actually happening who or what is doing it and are those my feet!
Surely the good old US of A have a nuclear sub that could find it without a problem. That said they’re all probably tied up bringing democracy to the countries that have oil.
I’m no expert but it doesn’t seem plausible that a Boeing 777 landed in the sea somewhere and sank fully intact. At the risk of being labelled a conspiracy theorist someone in some government knows exactly where that aircraft is.
I don’t think so on both counts. If it flew straight in one direction till fuel ran out its hardly in the mind of the person in control to survive and put her down. Besides landing on water is next to impossible. That time in new York was calm weather and a 1 in 100 bit of luck with a skilled pilot. Plus you would have bits floating from air slides. So no she went down hard. The time it took to even know where to look everything dispersed and sank.
No conspiracy. Well maybe but would have been a conspiracy by those on board. Needless to say everyone is dead deep in ocean their final resting place
It’s a vast ocean, it’s needle in haystack stuff,but it does seem incredible that it can’t be found with the technology available today. And it feeds into the nutty conspiracy theorists who think aliens were involved etc.
Any form of radio equipment and that is what these search devices are, has a limited range. The search signals are sent out and then bounced back if the range of the device is not great enough it won’t find anything. Also at these sort of depths there are probably “mountain ranges” which also play havoc with the signals.
Its crazy with all the technology today that it hasnt been found,especially when they seem certain that this is where the plane went down, I feel for the families,they are looking for answer and the authorities havent a clue as to where it is
This isn’t as unusual as it might seem. When the Air France jet crashed, it took 2 years to locate the black box and the plane. They found a few small pieces within a few days and it still took that long to find the rest. That plane was 13,000 ft down and they believe this plane is about 15,000 ft down. This is going to be no easy feat but that doesn’t mean there’s a major conspiracy or that information is being withheld.
I find this very hard to believe.. They say they are following every possible lead what type of leads can you get from a plane that just disappeared of the radar.. And had its black box turned off.. And how the hell can you you turn of the black box the most important part of the plane if it goes down can be just turned off by a switch I find that hard to believe that there is a switch for that black box.. I still think they still have not a clue were the plane is and are just searching places on the presumption that the plane went down in that area.. Also if the plane went down were they think surely there would be something floating on the surface like bits of the plane, luggage, clothing something.. I just find this whole situation very hard to believe that a plane can just disappear of the radar with not a trace behind it with all this technology at there disposal and a clue on the surface to show that there was a plane even went down in the area that they are looking at.. I find this very hard to believe…
They said it was turned off when it went down.. So if your saying they didn’t it goes to prove they haven’t a bog what happened, what they have suppose to have did ( pilots ) and everything is still up in the air apart from the plane…
You find it hard to believe because your not clued in with facts or how things work. Black box can’t be turned off and is not even related to the transponder
A satalite ping from the Rolls Royce engines is how they tracked it, all of the planes tracking equipment was disabled during the flight. The black box works of a battery which transmits on a specified frequency for 30-40 days after the aircraft has been lost
So why is it taking so long??? Black box no signal from it.. Transponder what ever the hell that does not working no debris from plane!!! So how do ye all know that it wasn’t turned of because if it wasn’t they would have found this plane weeks ago.. So tell me know it alls where is the plane and what happened to it?????
According to I dependant satellite tracking it was at some point in the Southern Indian Ocean as Ocean that accounts for 20% of the water on the earths surface and has never been fully surveyed and it would take 10 years to do so
Paul, a transponder is just one element of an aircraft communication system. It also uses radio frequencies and satallite, used depending on where the aircraft is (over land or sea) and who the crew are communication with (Air Traffic Control, another aircraft crew or the airline HQ). There are usually two transponders on a modern large aircraft, one as back up for the other in case it technical failures with one. They can’t actually be turned off unless here was a complete and total power failure on the aircraft. The media have consistently used the term ‘switched off’ when talking about this aircraft’s transponder.
There is no ‘off’ position on a transponder knob in the cockpit, only its operational modes or standby. Even in standby it stills registers a blank positive signal on radar. In full working mode in the air it also transmits an identifiable call sign so ATC can recognise who, what and where the aircraft is. A pilot will never turn the transponder to standby once in the air, unless it technically fails, there is a suspected electrical fire, or ATC reports to the pilot that it is sending a bad incorrect signal. Pilots will switch the transponder to standby once the aircraft safely lands.
The black boxes, which record voice and data from the aircraft, have nothing to do with the transponder. They operate and are powered independently. If and when they are submerged in water, they begin emitting a sonar signal up to a radius of about 3 miles.
Paul, I do take your broad point that it’s been a baffling few weeks and we still have not a shred of physical evidence as to the whereabouts of MH370, beyond sonar pings and a series of satellite handshakes when this aircraft went missing. The Indian Ocean is one of the most hostile and unchartered expanses of sea on this planet. We have better mapping of the surface of the moon than we do the bottom of the Indian Ocean. If you wanted to locate a missing aircraft in ideal circumstances, this is one of the last places on earth you would want to be searching in. Together with the loss of communication, the scant data from satellite tracking, and the erratic flight path and altitude fluctuations, I think this is why investigators are leaning towards the conclusion that this was the actions of someone onboard with knowledge and deliberate intent to evade and make a subsequent search as complex and difficult as possible.
@Mick…. maybe you can clear something up for me…after comms were lost with the aircraft it appears the the plane climbed to near ceiling height and then quickly dropped to about 12000ft. This kind of action would look like an attempt at extinguishing an onboard fire. If cabin depressurization was also an issue the plane would have had to maintain a low altitude while flying to the nearest airport. If the crew were overcome the plane may have continued to fly until all fuel was lost and then crashed My question is in an emergency situation like that is there any rules about using the auto pilot. If the plane stayed at a low altitude would it have had enough range to reach the suspect crash zone. If not and a later change in altitude after crossing the mallaca straights was make it must be almost certain that a person unknown had taken control and hence rule out pure mechanical failures.
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