And instead began using the so call bluefin 21. the submersible sonar system. he also said crews located an oil slick in the search area. they took samples and will be analyzing them in the coming days to figure out whether that oil has anything to do with flight 370. in the meantime, the two dozen ships and aircraft are scouring more than 47,000 square kilometers. so let s bring in our michael holmes who is live in perth with details on day 38 of the search. so michael, what can you tell us? apart from this news conference and of course these critical points here. we learn about this search going on underwater and we learned about this oil slick. reporter: yeah. a couple of headlines. more than two in this news conference by angus houston, the retired air chief marshal
As we head toward wednesday, waves picking up. for now we are calm. this is the hms perth. down below the hms earth that we have a lot of water to explore here. the he is made depth of where the signal came from is down in between 4184 meters down to over 4,500. and of course, the bluefin 21 only can get down to around 4,500 meters. that s about what the alvin got down to. to give you a point of reference to, how much space they re having to examine. the titanic was found at some 3810 meters. and the average depth of the indian ocean is right at 3890 meters. of course, we heard angus houston say it is a rolling terrain on the ocean floor and it is also highly, a lot of sediment here. a lot of silt. when you take a look at the
Homes that it will find something. it will be a very long process. a very tedious one. the bluefin moves literally at walking pace. for a cycle of it going down and coming back up takes 24 hours and in that time it covers about 40 square kilometers. this in a narrow search area of 1,300 square kilometers. so they re hoping it will find something. it tries to find wreckage. it takes 3d photographs of the ocean floor. they re hoping but they re certainly not getting ahead of themselves in optimism. reporting live from perth, australia. many thanks. of course, the families of those on board have been in anguish since the flight disappeared on march 8. she joins us now from hong kong. and pauline, although you are there in hong kong, you have remained in touch with those
Came from the airplane would be actually one of the first tangible confirmations that they re actually in the right area. we shall have to see. many thanks for joining us from queensland, australia. appreciate it. although the search is entering a new phase, now it is going to be even more painstaking, of course, as we have been telling you. we want to turn to michael holmes had a is live in perth, australia. it is 2:39 in the afternoon there, michael. people have to time to digest what has come out of that news conference. angus houston explaining the next phase, this new phase of the search operations. what is being said there on the ground? yeah, well, i think a lot of people around here. we ve been speculating for the last day or two, if they did not get another of those pings from the black boxes, they would move on to this.
Analysis will be done but say we don t know what that is. the other headline i suppose is that the air and surface search for floating debris will end in the next two or three days according to mr. houston. he said that the chances of any being found has been vastly diminished. they ve been out there looking. a dozen ships every day trying to find any piece of the wreckage. they re about 400 miles west of the search area where the pings were heard. that s because of storms and movement of the ocean. that is where their best guess was that any debris would have ended up. they re now saying or now feeling that it won t lead to any results so they ll focus on being underwater. all right. and michael holmes reporting live from perth, australia. many thanks to you as always. also in perth, australia is a leading authority on aviation, he is editor-in-chief at the website airline ratings.com and