Page 40 - Ocean Shield News Today

>> i need to be honest with you. it could take some days before the information is available to establish whether these detections can be confirmed as being from mh 370. in very deep oceanianic water, nothing happens fast. >> and when he says deep, he means water some three miles deep. a u.s. underwater drone is being prepared to scour the ocean floor near where the latest pings were heard. and as the search continues, so does speculation about what happened inside a cockpit. we are told the pla...

Families are certainly bearing the brunt of that not knowing and that at this stage i think is what they really want. so they can move on with their lives. wolf? >> what a heartbreaking story it is. now in week five. david mckenzie in beijing. thank you. lets bring in cnns tom foreman right now, hes got a closer look at those underwater pings that have the u.s. navy saying theyre cautiously optimistic. walk us through a little bit, tom, right now the kind of search equipment thats being used. >>...

Acoustic noise being pursued by the australian defense vessel, ocean shield in the current location. i stated that the ocean shield would be delayed from going to approximate area where 101 detected signals continuing her own investigations. today, i can report some very encouraging information which has unfolded as of the last 24 hours the ping lobing indicator deployed from the australian defense vessel ocean shield detected signals consistent with those emitted by aircraft black boxes. two se...

What picked the signal up. a pinger locator from the u.s. navy towed by the australian ship "ocean shield." if it is from the black box recorders, crews could be very close to finally finding the plane and uncovering what may have happened to throw it so wildly off course except, by many estimates, the batteries in the pingers should have already run out of juice. lets bring in rene marsh. this is one of the most encouraging signs weve seen yet but searchers are really under the gun now. >> they...

How many -- its going to take 11 hours just to get the thing down to where it can scan the ocean floor. so once it gets there and they get it in the water, its going take a day to get it down at the floor. >> and its all depends on which of the assets. which of the assets has got it. so we know echo is now on-site. >> right. >> and can deploy that which its got. but if they have to wait for ocean shield, ocean shield is still doing its own business 300 miles away. so if they declare that this is...

30,000 square miles, so two-thirds taken away, two-thirds narrowed down as a result of the leads theyve got. within the past hour or so, observation planes have been taking off, 14 aircraft will be taking to the skies over the course of this day to look for debris and assist in the search operation. that operation now focusing on two main areas, the first one being where the chinese first say they located some pinger activity, some akousic events, as they call them, to the south of the search zo...

Would expect. so, at that point, it was encouraging to get a signal, however, we were not overly optimistic. so, that was at 300 meters. at that point, the ocean shield turned off all the noise producing equipment. you want to reduce any chance of a false alarm. they did that, and then at that point, they held that signal again for over two hours. now at that point, the pcl was lowered to about 1400 meters. so that was deeper and that is more where you would expect to get the signal. the tow pin...

Black boxes? >> good afternoon, wolf. at the end of the day, what were looking at now is a new dimension that the search is going into, so it doesnt fundamentally change the job we have for the fixed-wing aircraft that are participating in the search in that we still need to try to locate the debris which will help refine that search area for the black boxes even more. as you have heard in the bulletin earlier, no doubt, the amount of ocean that the vessels can actually cover with the detecters,...

Very, very high-tech equipment here. and also, we cant discount the fact that they heard this sound for a two-hour block. thats a long period of time. what the chinese were talking about, 90 seconds. the manufacturer, himself, said if this pinger is working, its continuously pinging. its not going to ping for two seconds and then stop. so thats probably why theyre weighing more heavily on what the ocean shield is. >> the chinese detection capabilities were minuscule compared to what the u.s. has...

Detected. lets start our coverage with erin mclaughlin, live in perth, about 1,000 miles from where that signal was picked up. erin, what are you learning? >> reporter: kate, here in perth, theyre saying this is an extraordinary find. the australian vessel "ocean shield" picking up not one, but two. the first lasting two hours. the second lasting 13 minutes both saying consistent with characteristic, with flight black boxes. while authorities here are saying this is promising, they are nudging c...