All at sea: Australia's search for MH370 under scrutiny

All at sea: Australia's search for MH370 under scrutiny Wed, May 27 17:04 PM EDT image By Swati Pandey and Jane Wardell SYDNEY (Reuters) - Nearly a year after embarking on a multi-million dollar quest to solve one of aviation's greatest unsolved mysteries, authorities and search teams are being criticised over their approach to finding Flight MH370 in the remote southern Indian Ocean. The Australian-led search, already the most expensive in aviation history, has found no trace of the Malaysia Airlines jet or its 239 passengers and crew, prompting calls for a rethink into the way the mission is conducted. Experts involved in past deep water searches say the search to find MH370 could easily miss the plane as Dutch company Fugro NV, the firm at the forefront of the mission, is using inappropriate technology for some terrain and inexperienced personnel for the highly specialized task of hunting man-made objects. Heightening concerns, Australian authorities said on Wednesday that another search vessel, the Go Phoenix, which is using the world's best deep sea search equipment and crew provided by U.S. firm Phoenix International Holdings Inc, would pull out within weeks. No reason was given for withdrawing the vessel from the quest. "Fugro is a big company but they don't have any experience in this kind of search and it's really a very specialized job," said Paul-Henry Nargeolet, a former French naval officer who was hired by France's air accident investigation agency BEA to co-ordinate the search and recovery of Air France Flight AF447 in 2009. "This is a big job," Nargeolet told Reuters. "I'm not an Australian taxpayer, but if I was, I would be very mad to see money being spent like that." Fugro, which was contracted by the Australian government to operate three ships pulling sonar across the vast 60,000-km search zone, has rejected claims it is using the wrong equipment, saying its gear is rigorously tested. Still, Nargeolet's concerns are echoed by others in the tightly held deepsea search and rescue industry, who are worried that unless the search ships pass right over any wreckage the sonar scanning either side of the vessels won't pick it up. Experts also question the lack of data released by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) on the activities of the Fugro ships. Three of the bidders rejected for the MH370 contract, U.S. firm Williamson & Associates, France's ixBlue SAS and Mauritius-based Deep Ocean Search Ltd, have taken the unusual step of detailing their concerns - months down the track - directly to Australian authorities in correspondence viewed by Reuters. Several other experts are also critical, including some who requested anonymity, citing the close knit nature of the industry which has just a few companies and militaries capable of conducting deepwater searches. "I have serious concerns that the MH370 search operation may not be able to convincingly demonstrate that 100 percent sea floor coverage is being achieved," Mike Williamson, founder and president of Williamson & Associates told Reuters. DIVING INTO THE UNKNOWN Australia took over the search for the missing plane from Malaysia in late March last year, three weeks after MH370 disappeared off the radar during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The search area was determined by satellite data that revealed the plane turned back sharply over the Malaysian Peninsula and flew undetected for another six hours before crashing into the inhospitable southern Indian Ocean. The unchartered waters, buffeted by the Roaring Forties winds, stretch as deep as 6 km, hiding old volcanoes and cliffs in their depths. Australia, Malaysia and China earlier this month agreed to double the search area to 120,000 sq km. Whether Phoenix International, which has U.S. navy contracts and found AF447, will be part of that extended search area is unclear after the ATSB said that Go Phoenix, owned by Australian firm Go Marine, will cease operating on June 19. Phoenix International, which was contracted separately by the Malaysian government, did not immediately return calls about its position. The Malaysian government also did not reply to requests for comment. Two of the Fugro ships traverse up and down 2.4 km-wide strips of the sea floor, pulling via a cable a "towfish" that contains sonar equipment, in a technique often called "mowing the lawn". The towfish coasts around 100 meters above the sea floor, sending out sound waves diagonally across a swath, or broad strip, to produce a flattened image of the seabed. The Fugro ships are using sonar provided by EdgeTech, the same U.S. company whose sonar was used successfully to find Air France AF447 after it crashed in the Atlantic Ocean. However, experts say while the type of sonar equipment being used by Fugro gives good results in flat surfaces, it is less well-suited to rugged underwater terrain, a world of confusing shadows. The ATSB has routinely released detailed data from Go Phoenix, but has not done so for the Fugro ships. Experts have cobbled together an analysis from glimpses of the sonar use and data in videos and images posted to the ATSB website. From that, they've gauged the EdgeTech sonars are operating at swathes beyond their optimum capabilities, resulting in poor quality images and leaving side gaps in coverage. "It makes no sense to be using fine scale tools to cover a massive area; it is like mowing an entire wheat field with a household lawnmower," said Rob McCallum, a vice-president at Williamson & Associates. Fugro deputy managing director Paul Kennedy said the sonar is running within its capabilities, noting the system identified five "debris-like" objects in 700-metre deep water at a test range off the West Australian coast. "The test range gives us full confidence the sonars will see the debris field when we cross it," he said. WILD WEATHER Fugro is known for its expertise in high-quality low-resolution mapping of sea floors but has far less experience than some of the rejected bidders in deepwater aircraft searches. It has been involved in 17 search and recovery efforts for aircraft or ships over 15 years, compared with some of the bidders who search for 4-5 aircraft every year. Kennedy pointed to the find earlier this month of a previously uncharted shipwreck as evidence Fugro was capable of finding the plane. Concerning experts further is the fact that the third Fugro vessel, which was being used to scan the gaps between the other two ships with an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), was this month taken out of action because of encroaching wild winter weather. That leaves the daily search without an AUV, a much more nimble piece of equipment that was vital in successful search for AF447. "We are continuously reviewing the search data as it comes in and we are satisfied that the coverage and detection standards we have specified are being met or exceeded," ATSB Chief Commissioner Martin Dolan said in an email. (Additional reporting by Tim Hepher in PARIS; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

Australian PM says searchers confident of position of MH370's black boxes

Australian PM says searchers confident of position of MH370's black boxes Fri, Apr 11 00:29 AM EDT image By Swati Pandey and John Ruwitch PERTH/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Search and rescue officials in Australia are confident they know the approximate position of the black box recorders from missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on Friday. At the same time, however, the head of the agency coordinating the search said that the latest "ping" signal, which was captured by a listening device buoy on Thursday, was not related to the plane. "We are confident that we know the position of the black box flight recorder to within some kilometers (miles)," Abbott said in a speech in the Chinese commercial capital Shanghai. "Still, confidence in the approximate position of the black box is not the same as recovering wreckage from almost four and a half kilometers beneath the sea or finally determining all that happened on the flight." The mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which disappeared more than a month ago, has sparked the most expensive search and rescue operation in aviation history. The search was focusing on a small patch of the Indian Ocean on Friday, after the latest "ping" seemed to lend credence to four previous "pings" detected by a U.S. Navy "Towed Pinger Locator" (TPL) towed by Australia's Ocean Shield vessel. All five acoustic signals were detected in this small area. But Angus Houston, head of the Australian agency supervising the search effort, said on Friday that analysis of acoustic data confirmed that the latest signal was unlikely to be related to the missing plane's black boxes. "On the information I have available to me, there has been no major breakthrough in the search for MH370. I will provide a further update if, and when, further information becomes available," he said in a statement. The black boxes record cockpit data and may provide answers about what happened to the plane, which was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew when it vanished on March 8 and flew thousands of kilometers off its Kuala Lumpur-to-Beijing route. BATTERIES FADING AS SEARCH CLOSES IN Search efforts are now focused on three areas. Aircraft and ships are combing two large search zones, some 2,390 km (1,485 miles) northwest of Perth, for possible floating debris related to the crash. But it is the much smaller search zone, just 600 sq km (232 sq miles, located about 1,670 km (1038 miles) northwest of Perth that has generated fresh optimism. The smaller zone is near where the Ocean Shield picked up the acoustic signals and where dozens of sonobuoys capable of transmitting data to search aircraft via radio signals were dropped on Wednesday. The batteries in the black boxes have already reached the end of their 30-day expected life, making efforts to swiftly locate them on the murky ocean floor all the more critical, Abbott said. "We are now getting to the stage where the signal from what we are very confident is the black box is starting to fade and we are hoping to get as much information as we can before the signal finally expires," he said. But experts say the process of teasing out the signals from the cacophony of background noise in the sea is a slow and exhausting process. An autonomous underwater vehicle named Bluefin-21 is onboard the Ocean Shield and could be deployed to look for wreckage on the sea floor once a final search area has been identified. (Additional reporting by Matt Siegel and Lincoln Feast in SYDNEY; Editing by Michael Perry) ============= Malaysian plane search in 44th day, sea bed scans could end in days By Byron Kaye and Matt Siegel SYDNEY/PERTH, Australia Sat Apr 19, 2014 10:27pm EDT The Phoenix International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Artemis is craned over the side of Australian Defence Vessel Ocean Shield in the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in the Southern Indian Ocean in his picture released by the Australian Defence Force on April 20, 2014. Credit: Reuters/LSIS Bradley Darvill/Handout via Reuters Related TopicsWorld » Australia » Aerospace & Defense » SYDNEY/PERTH, Australia (Reuters) - The search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 entered its 44th day on Sunday as Australian search officials said a crucial series of sonar scans of the Indian Ocean floor could be completed within a week. The air, surface and underwater search is now focused on footage taken by a U.S. Navy deep sea drone, which has narrowed its target range to a tight 10-km (6.2-mile) circle of sea floor. The Bluefin-21 autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) has spent the past week scouring the remote and largely unmapped stretch of ocean floor some 2,000 km (1,200 miles) northwest of the Australian city of Perth for signs of the plane, which disappeared on March 8 with 239 people on board. The remote controlled submarine is now in its eighth deep sea mission with no sign of wreckage so far. The drone has searched about half its targeted area, the authorities said on Sunday. The Malaysian government has said the search is at a "very critical juncture" and asked for prayers for its success. Malaysian Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein has also said the government may consider using more AUVs in the search. After almost two months without a sign of wreckage, the current underwater search is centered on an area where one of four acoustic signals believed to be from the plane's black box recorders was detected on April 8. Weeks of daily sorties have failed to turn up any trace of the plane, even after narrowing the search to an arc in the southern Indian Ocean, making this the most expensive such operation in aviation history. Hopes for further black box signals are fast diminishing, since the black box batteries are now two weeks past their 30-day expected life span, search officials have said. But while the Bluefin-21's target range has narrowed, the air and surface search continues unabated, with daily sorties a week after Australian search coordinator retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston said the air and surface component of the search would end within three days. On Sunday, up to 11 military aircraft and 12 ships will help with the search, covering a total of roughly 48,507 square km (18,729 sq miles) across two areas, the Perth-based Joint Agency Coordination Centre said in a statement. (Editing by Clarence Fernandez) =====================