The race against the clock: An Australian search ship announced Monday morning that it has picked up underwater sounds in the southern Indian Ocean that match signals from a black box installed on airplanes. Thirty days after the plane disappeared, the black box's batteries are about to stop working, so finding the box in the coming hours may be the last chance for information about the fate of flight MH370.
An Australian official today described the signal reception as the 'most promising signal' discovered so far. However, Agnus Houston, head of the Southern Indian Ocean Search Coordinating Agency, says it may be over.and It will be many days before it can be determined whether this is indeed the black box from the missing flight.
The black box is a recording device installed in every aircraft, which digitally records and documents various flight data, and records the voices of the flight crew. The device is equipped with a transmitter that sends signals from the moment it touches water and is powered by batteries. The batteries may operate for up to 30 days from the time of the flight, hence the great urgency.
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Car to the bottom of the ocean
The Australian ship received two separate signals – on Saturday morning, and early Sunday morning. The first signal lasted about 2 hours and 20 minutes, and the second about 13 minutes. The ship is now examining a certain area of the ocean in the hope of locating the signal again. Assuming that the team does indeed detect a signal from the depths of the sea again, an underwater vehicle will be sent to the depths of the ocean in an attempt to retrieve the box.
But even lowering the vehicle to the depths of the sea is not without its problems. Captain Mark Matthews of the US Navy explains that the vehicle will operate at the limit of its capabilities, as the estimated depth of the water in the area where the signal was received is about 4,500 meters – an estimate of the underwater vehicle's capabilities.
At the same time, over the weekend, a Chinese ship detected additional signals, approximately 600 kilometers away from the location of the Australian ship, and they are also currently being examined.
