Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Australia Rebooting Search For MH370

Posted by Unknown on from the soon-to-be-best-mapped-area-on-earth dept.

McGruber (1417641) writes "The Wall Street Journal reports that two months after pausing its search for the missing Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777-200ER, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) is ready to reboot its search. The ATSB is poised to select among bids from the world's most-advanced deep-water specialists, including offshore oil-and-gas companies, maritime research institutions and treasure hunters eager to use their technologies and experience to solve the Flight 370 riddle—and potentially raise their own profiles in the process. ... With no hard evidence of where the plane went down, the search will test the recovery industry's abilities like nothing before. In June, Australian authorities shifted the search zone for a third time — by about 600 miles to the southwest — after reanalyzing satellite transmissions. Even then, they said it was impossible to know whether the fresh search area would prove correct."

13 of 92 comments (clear)

  1. Time for Restart by smittyoneeach · · Score: 4, Funny

    Time for restart
    Mustn't lose heart
    For Malaysian air dart
    That went all Earhart
    Burma Shave

    --
    Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
  2. More information by GumphMaster · · Score: 4, Informative

    A current bathymetric survey progress map is here. The earlier underwater search area was around the Zenith Plateau region. Elsewhere on that site are routine updates, although they are getting less frequent of late.

    --
    Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
    1. Re:More information by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I'm sorry about all the people who were on the plane, but if there's any bright side in this it is that the world will get to map a bit more of what's around us. It's shocking how little we know about the depths of the oceans.

      So I hope all the multibeam data collected about the sea floor features gets published to free and open databases like GMRT:

      http://www.marine-geo.org/port...

  3. ANOTHER reboot? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Is J.J. Abrams going to direct the search this time?

  4. Re:I hope they find it by Black+Parrot · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Just so that people stop sending me links to conspiracy theories about it.

    Since when did facts put an end to conspiracy theories?

    --
    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
  5. Why the Australians? by nukenerd · · Score: 3

    Serious question, why are the Australians taking the lead in this? There were only 6 Australians on board out of 239 people, and waters near (but not all that near) Australia are only one area of many that the plane might have ended up. Most pasengers were Chinese or Malaysians. I'm suprised no-one has come up with a conspiracy theory on this point - there have been some more fantastic ones.

    1. Re:Why the Australians? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Because it's in Australia's maritime search zone - see https://www.amsa.gov.au/search-and-rescue/sar-in-australia/arrangements-in-australia/ for more info.

    2. Re:Why the Australians? by Richard_at_work · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It took 2 years of searching before the black boxes from Air France flight AF447 were found, and during that period there was a massive amount of speculation and doubt about what happened, leading to total uncertainty about how to prevent another crash. Airbus took a beating as everyone assumed it was an aircraft fault which led to the crash.

      When they found the black boxes, the real problem turned out to not be a systems fault (although there was a momentary loss of air speed data due to icing, it didn't cause the crash) but a crew training problem so spending the time and money to find and recover them after 2 years has lead to small systems changes but significant pilot training changes.

      So while everyone assumes that MH370 crashed due to the pilot committing suicide, there is always that element of doubt because we really don't know what transpired until we have evidence - so what happens if that assumed 0.001% chance of this particular crash being caused by something else, something mechanical or systems related, comes real and it causes another crash?

    3. Re:Why the Australians? by jittles · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It took 2 years of searching before the black boxes from Air France flight AF447 were found, and during that period there was a massive amount of speculation and doubt about what happened, leading to total uncertainty about how to prevent another crash. Airbus took a beating as everyone assumed it was an aircraft fault which led to the crash.

      When they found the black boxes, the real problem turned out to not be a systems fault (although there was a momentary loss of air speed data due to icing, it didn't cause the crash) but a crew training problem so spending the time and money to find and recover them after 2 years has lead to small systems changes but significant pilot training changes.

      So while everyone assumes that MH370 crashed due to the pilot committing suicide, there is always that element of doubt because we really don't know what transpired until we have evidence - so what happens if that assumed 0.001% chance of this particular crash being caused by something else, something mechanical or systems related, comes real and it causes another crash?

      There is a serious control fault with the Airbus that did result in the crash of AF447. One pilot was nosing the plane up as hard as he could. The other was nosing it down as hard as he could. There was absolutely no feedback from one pilot to the other indicating that they were fighting each other. Instead, the control system took the stronger force and allowed the plane to continue to try and climb and eventually stall and fall from the sky. Was there a huge mistake on the part of the pilots? Absolutely. But you can't deny that there was a critical problem with the controls in the aircraft as well. A problem that so many people try to say doesn't exist.

    4. Re:Why the Australians? by Richard_at_work · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually, no, your description of what happened was completely wrong. Airbus side sticks have a "priority" button, there is no "fighting each other" - if a pilot wants to take over command then all he has to do is press the priority button and he has command authority.

      What happened to AF447 had little to do with how the Airbus controls are set out - after all, the exact same thing (pilots stalling the aircraft because they were unsure as to what was happening) has happened on both the 767 and the DC-9, which both have linked control columns.

      What really happened to AF447 is that the pilots lost their situational awareness, they didn't carry out the right procedures in the case of an airspeed mismatch, they didn't recognise that they were approaching a stall, and then they disregarded further airspeed warnings after the airspeed issue was resolved - by reacting badly to the initial fault, they stalled the aircraft and didn't realise until far too late.

      The right hand seated pilot kept his stick hard back, which is against all of his training - he shouldn't have been trying to raise the nose that much at all, and yet he kept the stick hard back for minutes at a time. It wasn't until the senior pilot, being summoned from the cabin where he was resting, queried the action being taken that the pilot flying stopped his action, but by then they were seconds away from hitting the water.

      There is no issue with the Airbus flight controls, despite what many anti-Airbus people say - as I said above, the same issue has happened on non-Airbus aircraft.

      Also a side note - at abso-fucking-lutly no time should two pilots be "fighting for control over each other". Should never happen. The designated pilot flying should be the only one on the controls, the designated pilot-non-flying should be doing the instrumentation and only ever have his hands on the controls at the explicit request of the pilot flying. Your "description" of what happened would be a huge failure of training and crew relationships.

  6. Re:How much have they spent already? by geogob · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Still no clue whatsoever?

    And this is exactly why we should keep searching for the wreckage and find it. Knowing what happened is the key to prevent it from happening again. More than in any other fields, aviation safety is build upon knowledge gained from past incidents and accidents. This is why it is worth investing both the time and the money to understand the events that lead to the crash.

  7. Re:How much have they spent already? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Here's my problem.

    It went into the ocean. Everyone is pretty certain of that. Since it did, it either broke up, or was able to remain intact. Highly unlikely it remained entirely intact, statistically speaking, given what we know about pilots, aircraft, water landings.... So, that means it broke up. Now I imagine most debris would sink. Most! However, there was quite a bit of material on that plane that wouldn't, or shouldn't sink. Ever! I realize the ocean is big, and search efforts are rather small comparively, but I have a hard time believing we haven't found a single shred of debris from the plane. Maybe it's just a matter of time, but to me, the most disconcerting things is that we've found no trace of it, at all! Nothing!

  8. Re:How much have they spent already? by Deadstick · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yes, pieces of debris should start washing up on beaches, but it can take a while. The first of the "lost rubber duckies" of 1992 took ten months to be found, and finds continued for at least fifteen years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...

    Also, the floating debris won't include a lot of specifically airplane material. It will be seat cushions, clothing, plastic bottles...and the sea is already full of floating crap, so an object isn't certain to be recognized even if it appears on Waikiki Beach.