Page 39 - Ocean Shield News Today

>> reporter: matthews team is on the ocean shield using a towed pinger locator or tpl, listening for flight 370s black boxes. >> what i would like to do before i absolutely say with certainty that it is the aircraft, is one reacquire the signal, two deploy the autonomous underwater vehicle with the side scan sonar, and three, switch out that sonar with the camera unit and take photographs of what would be the wreckage. >> slow and tedious work, nearly 15,000 feet, almost three miles down. the ex...

What is on the ocean floor and, you know, ill be happy at that point and well worry about where it goes after that. >> australia, the u.s., others may want access to it, though my own sense is that the ntsb should get access to it. they have the most experience in dealing with the flight data recorder and the cockpit and voice recorder. lets just wrap up. where do we go from here as far as the u.s. navy is concerned? what are you guys doing right now? how much longer are you going to stay in tha...

>> do you think its possible that the batteries may have run out during those 24 hours because we know they usually last for about 30 days and were now in day 31. >> yeah, thats certainly a big factor, the race against the clock. so a couple big challenges. one, like you said, the batteries at any point could die down and the second thing is, the effectiveness of our towed pinger locator really is only as good as the strength of the signal coming out of the pinger. so as the battery dies down or...

Money would go focusing on the "ocean shield" and trying to reacquire this signal that we found yesterday. >> whats your best estimate as to the heim horizon of when youre hoping to pick the signal back up. you can gauge it all? >> no one knows. this is a very deliberate and slow -- necessarily slow process. so just to turn the ship around requires a pretty complex operation. you have to retrieve the cpl. you have to do a very slow and deliberate turn. because you want to get back on that same c...

A british navy ship called "hms echo" is now in the area where the chinese ship detected two audio signals. the echo is equipped with a state-of-the-art sonar that can map the ocean floor. as you know, two pinger detectors picked up sound within 350 nautical miles of ooch other. >> the hmo heck co-in the general vicinity of where the chinese patrol ship detected the pinging sounds on friday and saturday. the goal is to try to find that sound again and either confirm or rule out that it is from t...

That only cnn can deliver. lets begin with matthew chance. hes joining us from perth, australia. whats the latest, matthew? >> reporter: wolf, thanks. intensive efforts to try to confirm the dramatic findings over the weekend. there are observation flights that are expected to take off here from the australian city of perth within the next few hours. also, a number of ships have made their way to a location where the chinese found those pings over the weekend. but the focus is very much on the a...

Boxes, would you a categorize this as one of the luckiest finds ever? >> the word luck is preparation -- any search leader has ever had and its a reflection on the careful work thats being done by the people in the back room who are retro knave gating their way through the radar signals through the hand shakes to give us this point on the ocean. >> the signals were strong as the pinger locator got close to it and then faded away as, you know, the ship moved away from the sound. why is that impor...

Been a significant lead in the search for the missing aircraft. as stated by the joint agency coordinating center in perth earlier today, the towed pinger locator deployed from "hmas ocean shield" has detected signals consistent with those emitting by aircraft black boxes. while they may be a step closer to us finding mh-370, there are still many steps to be taken before we can positively verify that these signals are from mh-370. this morning, prime minister razis rezak had a call from prime mi...

The signal was also sustained he says for up to two hours. what does that mean? can you explain? >> thats what you would think would happen. if youre relatively close to the pinger on the path of the locater theyre towing behind the vehicle, you would find you would be far away and moving at a knot, maybe two naughts. youre picking it up. you pass over the top or adjacent to it and you pull the sled past and start to lose the signal. at the speeds the ship is moving, at the ranges that the pinge...

With surface debris is very small. as authorities say, miracle do happen. >> lets compare the chinese pinger locater as opposed to whats being used on board the "ocean shield." a tow locater. >> what the chinese are using is a system designed to be held by divers, so very shallow water. you sort of aim it in the direction that you think the ping might be located. its very directional. >> so in a situation like this, thats a little risky to be using that for such a gigantic area. >> right. the ma...