Monday, April 28, 2014

Day 52 — New lead?

GeoResonance Ltd, a South Australian company and its team of scientists have invested considerable resources into the search for Malaysian Airlines flight MH370. The only motivation is to help the families of the missing passengers and crew, knowing the company has the technology capable of the task.
GeoResonance has discovered what they believe to be the wreckage of a commercial aircraft. The wreckage is located approximately 190km south of Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal. The wreckage is sitting on the seabed approximately 1000m to 1100m from the surface. The company is not declaring this is MH370, however it should be investigated. The search was completed using proven technology. In the past, it had been successfully applied to locate submersed structures, ships, munitions and aircraft. In some instances objects that were buried under layers of silt could not be identified by other means. At present the technology is being used with great success in the mining exploration industry.
In order to identify and locate subsurface substances, GeoResonance Remote Sensing analyses super-weak electromagnetic fields captured by airborne multispectral images. During the search for MH370, GeoResonance searched for chemical elements that make up a Boeing 777: aluminium, titanium, copper, steel alloys, jet fuel residue, and several other substances. The aim was to find a location where all those elements were present.
GeoResonance commenced the search before the official Search and Rescue operation moved to the Southern Indian Ocean. The multi-discipline team of 23 researchers, including 5 professors and 12 PhDs got involved in the project. The search used the imagery taken on March 10, 2014, and was conducted consecutively in 4 zones north and northwest of Malaysia, until all targeted elements produced an anomaly in one place in the Bay of Bengal.
GeoResonance completed analysis of multispectral imagery of the location taken on March 5, 2014. It established that the anomaly had appeared between the 5th and 10th of March 2014.

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Day 47 — Object of interest

Unidentified material that has washed ashore in southwestern Australia is being examined for any link to the lost Malaysian plane. Police secured the metal item, which washed ashore near Augusta, on the country’s southwestern coastline. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau is examining photographs to assess whether further investigation is needed and if the material is relevant to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.










Next day the Australian authorities revealed that the "object of interest" found on the coast of western Australia is not related to the lost plane.

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Day 41 — No oil link

The Australian authorities said that an oil slick detected in the search zone and collected by the Australian vessel Ocean Shield was not engine oil or hydraulic fluid from an aircraft.

The sample was collected Sunday night more than three miles from the area where Ocean Shield had picked up underwater acoustic signals.

Monday, April 14, 2014

Day 38 — Go underwater

No underwater pulses detected in almost a week. Ocean Shield will cease searching with the towed pinger locator later today (Monday) and deploy the autonomous underwater vehicle Bluefin-21. It's a probe equipped with side-scan sonar -- acoustic technology that creates pictures from the reflections of sound rather than light. Each deployment will last 24 hours. It will take two hours for the Bluefin-21 to get down to the bottom of the ocean. Then it will scour the ocean bed for 16 hours, and take another two hours to resurface. It will take take another four hours to download and analyze the data collected.




The Australian ship Ocean Shield detected an oil slick Sunday evening, but it is unclear where the oil came from. A 2-liter sample has been collected for examination, but it will take a few days.

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Day 33 — Two more signals

Australian officials said that two new "ping" signals had been detected in the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370. They have confirmed that the pulse signals in the southern Indian Ocean are from a man-made device and are not natural sounds from the sea. He said that he believes the Malaysian jet could be found
 within
 days.
The first signal, at 4:45pm Perth Time on Saturday, lasted 2 hours 20 minutes.

The second, at 9:27pm Saturday, lasted 13 minutes.

The third signal was picked up Tuesday at 4:27pm. That lasted 5 minutes 32 seconds.

The fourth,
at 10:17pm
Tuesday,
was 7
minutes
long.

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Day 30 — Signals from Ocean Shield

The Australian defence vessel Ocean Shield detected two separate signals within the northern part of the search area. The first detection lasted two hours and 20 minutes, and the second lasted 13 minutes. Significantly this would be consistent with transmissions from both the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder. The vessel is continuing to monitor the area to relocate the signal.

Even with the black box batteries estimated to expire today, the International task force continues to search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, looking for any sign of the missing airliner.

Saturday, April 5, 2014

Day 29 — Signal from Hai Xun 01



The Chinese vessel "Hai Xun 01" searching the Indian Ocean for flight MH370 detected a signal at a frequency used by the missing aircraft's black boxes on Saturday, but Australia warned there was no evidence yet that it was linked to the plane.

Friday, April 4, 2014

Day 28 — Ocean Shield

Australian navy vessel Ocean Shield, equipped with US-supplied black box detectors, nears the search area. The black box's one-month battery life is set to expire soon.

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Day 25 — Transcript of the communications

The Malaysian authorities has released the full transcript of the communication between the missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) MH370 flight and the Kuala Lumpur Air Traffic Control.

KUALA LUMPUR: “Good night Malaysian three seven zero”
That was the last conversation in the transcript between the air traffic controller (ATC) and the cockpit at 1.19am (Malaysian Time) as confirmed. Earlier reports stated that the last radio message from the plane – an informal “All right, goodnight” – was spoken before the tracking system, known as ACARS, was shut down.