The Royal Australian Navy and British Royal Navy have commenced a sub-surface search for emissions from the black-box pinger from Mala...
The Royal Australian Navy and British Royal Navy have commenced a sub-surface search for emissions from the black-box pinger from Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 on Friday.
Australian Navy is using the Towed Pinger Locator 25 from the United States Navy on Australian Navy Shop Ocean Shield, and the Royal Navy, with a similar capability on HMS Echo.
The two ships will search a single 240 kilometre track, converging on each other.
The Commander of Joint Task Force 658, Commodore Peter Leavy, said the two ships and their towed-pinger equipment would be operating at significantly reduced speed to search at depths of three thousand metres or more.
Functionality tests were carried out on the TPL, US Navy supplied Bluefin Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) and transducer pole to prove its effectiveness during transit to the search area. All the acoustic sensors, GPS positioning, tracking and frequency systems and positioning of the equipment completed a functionality test.
Commodore Peter Leavy said, the search using sub-surface equipment needs to be methodical and carefully executed in order to effectively detect the faint signal of the pinger, which has an designed life for 30 days and ends on April 7.
Today, Australian Maritime Safety Authority has determined a search area of about 217,000 square kilometres, 1700 kilometres north west of Perth. Up to 10 military planes, three civil jets and 11 ships will assist in today's search.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau continues to refine the last position of MH370, based on technical analysis of satellite communication and aircraft performance, passed from the international air crash investigative team comprising analysts from Malaysia, the United States, the UK, China and Australia.
