Wow! That’s one tough box. Thank you Waenara.
There is no evidence to date that it flew this route beyond a supposed reference to Malaysian military tracking which was officially denied. So I don’t see how this has been well established.
If it’s found in the current location it’s consistent with a line drawn from the last known location to the nearest airport (TGG). When they attempted to contact the plane via another aircraft they received a response that was described as mumbling and static. As it stands now it looks like the crew turned back and were overcome.
The following was a response to an article this morning in the
Chicago Tribune
Quote: “The Air France search showed just how unreliable getting fixes from even steady sources can be. At 4500 meters there are roughly 6 temperature gradients that can trap sounds and create convergence zones that make a signal from 40 miles away sound like it’s right next door. The lack of consistency is, therefore, understandable. About the only definitive conclusions that can be made are if there are two distinct signals (one for each box) and some general heading data. Salt water is a very finicky medium.”
No.
Consider the Titanic, resting on the bottom at 12,415 feet. It isn’t squashed. Indeed it is largely whole and in remarkably good condition.
For something to be squashed under the enormous pressures of the deep ocean, that something has to be compressible meaning that the the walls of its cells or spaces collapse. Black boxes don’t have a lot of empty space in them, nor do they have much in the way of compressible materials. They are also built very strongly to resist exactly this current situation.
Most of the metal structures of the plane and even some plastics will retain their form.
While on the subject of oceanic compression, I have just remembered there is an example somewhere in the house.
Oceanographers and marine scientists like to take samples of the water column when out on research vessels. The deeper the better. They use Conductivity, Temperature, Depth (CTD) Sensors and Rosette Samplers which gather all sorts of data.
The process is time consuming because you don’t just toss $20,000 worth of scientific instruments over the side and hope you hit 12,000 feet. Its all very exacting.
Anyway one of the things scientists do for souvenirs and amusement is write messages (Happy Birthday, Valentine etc) on Styrofoam coffee cups, tie a mesh bag of cups to the CTD, and then wait to see what sea pressure will do.
I have one such cup (a gift). It is the size of a thimble. A vivid and simple example of inconceivable pressure.
For a while, they were searching the Andaman Islands area and further to the Bay of Bengal. They wouldn’t have been searching there if they didn’t have any evidence of the plane heading in that direction at some point.
Someone back there asked why they don’t just drop anchor when they hear a ping, because anchors don’t go down 15,000 ft.
I’m starting to wonder how the Australian ocean vessel searching for the ping got to the exact location so fast and were in the right place to get a ping, especially when the Chinese search vessels said that they also got a ping 350 miles away for 90 seconds and now we don’t hear anything about the Chinese search???
Sounds like the Australian search vessel had more than just a little luck in finding what they found.
Perhaps a nuclear submarine from Great Britain or USN found it first. From Bin Laden to Benghazi we never get the whole story first, always takes a few days or weeks or months.
That wasn’t drop anchor, but “drop anchor.” The modern equivalent would be to save the GPS coordinates.
Have a gander at this website http://www.marinetraffic.com and look at the the two search areas off the coast of Australia - they are highlighted. The big one has quite a few ships bustling about, but the small one has only Ocean Shield, with it’s towed array, and the newly arrived HMS Echo - a hydrological/oceanographic survey ship declaring their position. When you find them, you can see where they’ve been if you click on the tracking button. Ocean Shield looks like she’s been quartering the area, and *Echo * has made haste, and is now doing stuff too.
Great site. Who’d a thunk it.
There just might be something to this Internet thingy I’ve been hearing about.
That is extremely cool.
Thanks!
Have a look at the English Channel some time. Busy!
Amazing site, just spent ages clicking on random ships in funny places. It’s incredible how much data there is freely available these days.
I like finding ships in the middle of nowhere, pushing through to some remote outpost. 
You’ll like Flightradar too I think.
Thank you kindly Baron that is one of the best sites I have ever seen. It will be on my favorite favorites for a long time.
Another flaw in the system. Hopefully now they’ll start making anchor chains longer.
Suggestions/rumours that the black box has been found: http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/unconfirmed-report-says-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-black-box-has-been-found/story-fnizu68q-1226880483186
- There have been articles in the media about the continued attempts to interpret the satellite data from the handshakes, which have led investigators to narrow down the possible search area, farther north than the original extremely broad area. When the search area is narrowed down, the chance of finding something increases. The Australian ship has been searching in the newly narrowed area.
Here’s an article from the UK Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10750765/MH370-missing-plane-black-box-pings-tracked-to-same-point-as-final-half-handshake.html.
(Note that they are now thinking that if the plane just ran out of fuel, it may have flipped over and entered the ocean upside down, losing both wings quickly thereafter.)
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A nuclear submarine would not be very effective at finding anything on the bottom, because the Indian Ocean is very deep there: estimated at 4,500 metres, at the extreme range for the unmanned submersible, and well below the collapse range for manned submarines, which is estimated to be at 730 metres. A nuclear submarine could not go to the ocean floor there.
Submarine depth ratings - Wikipedia -
We’ve not been hearing about the Chinese sounding, because the Chinese haven’t been able to duplicate it, using the equipment they had, which is not designed to pick up deep water sounds.
Not only that…
Of course, it might not be the plane. But it’s starting to get exciting.
The MarineTraffic website now shows Echo inside the search area moving very slowly.
True but don’t forget that subs have superb sonar suites that are excellent at listening to sounds in the ocean.