US Navy Black Box Locator In Action
Amidst the desperate search for any signs of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, the U.S. Navy's Towed Pinger Locator 25 may have picked up pings from the black box of the missing airplane.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Australian navy ship Ocean Shield, which is towing the U.S. Navy's black box detector, picked up the pings Sunday in a remote region of the southern Indian Ocean, roughly 950 nautical miles northwest of Perth, Australia.
According to the U.S. 7th Fleet Public Affairs:
Upon [initial] detection, the Ocean Shield crew turned off as much noise-producing equipment as possible to reduce the chance of false alarms, and the signal was again held for over two hours at a TPL [Towed Ping Locator) depth of 1,400 meters.
The signal strength increased and then faded, as would be expected with the ship moving toward then away from the signal.
"Clearly, this is a most promising lead. And probably in the search so far, it's probably the best information that we have had...
"Ocean Shield remains in the immediate area and continues to try and regain contact with the towed pinger locator. To this point, it has not been able to re-acquire the signals."
Overall patrol aircraft support to date includes 24 missions with 220 of flight time covering 336,000 square nautical miles.
