Page 32 - Pinger News Today

When we come back, how hard is it to find a black box pinger on the ocean floor, especially in the battery has died and youre not hearing it? we have one right here and were going to show you how it works. (vo) you are a business pro. maestro of project management.

They were there, then they werent. those crucial signals picked up in the indian ocean consistent with pings from the flight recorders. no one is following this more intensely than the team at phoenix international, which designed the device which heard those sounds. >> do you think that even though they havent picked up anything for a couple of days that the pinger locator could still pick up pings? >> i believe so. based on my experience, i believe so. we did a job a few years back and heard t...

Actually say were closing in on not just the pinger but the wreckage. >> from what i understand, the ocean floor itself can make this a difficult search as well. can you explain that? >> well, this area is 15,000 feet, about 4500 meters. thats actually the limitations that the blue fin 21 has. theyre hoping that this is going to be within this range so they can map the bottom using auv. we haves got mountain ouster rain, well have bridges, valleys, gullies and we dont know where this would be in...

Or maybe never. >> ill talk to two experts who know how these pingers and pinger trackers work because they build them. more breaking news coverage right after this. nnouncer ] nearly 7 million clients. how did edward jones get so big? let me just put this away. ♪ could you teach our kids that trick? [ male announcer ] by not acting that way. its how edward jones makes sense of investing. ...and let in the dog that woke the man who drove to the control room [ woman ] driverless mode engaged. f...

The time factor in general, we really are doing this backwards which makes it even more extraordinary. what theyre going to need to do is work the problem backwards in that once we find or can narrow down an area of boxes then to start looking for the wreckage. you know, we need to be mindful that even if we lose the pinger signal and we continue -- and then end up using the side sonar to start scan for that, the boxes are pretty small. we dont necessarily have to find the box per se right away....

Islands bay, researchers show us the challenges search crews face as they try to hear the ping from flight 370s data recorder. >> this is a hydrophone. >> reporter: we drop an underwater microphone, a hydrophone, off the back of the boat as it moves farther away from the pinger thats already been submerged. and even less than 100 yards away, the ping starts to fade. distance isnt the only problem out in the indian ocean. there are other noises competing with the sound of the pinger, like sea lif...

Pinging. and just pick up the signal is very complex. as you look at the water, you could be very close to where the pinger is and see no acoustic response and you could be further response and see a response. so the needle in the hay stack problem is really true. >> even though the search area has shrunk so much. rob, i wanted to ask you about that. they wont send a submarine down until the search area is narrowed further. right now eithits the size of houston. you how small must it be? >> well...

Search, at least theyre searching, and there seems to be a very good reason, theyre a little bit noisy. is that primarily the problem? >> well, the auvs would go in the water not to necessarily find the pinger but to stop mapping the bottom. they use a side-scan sonar system and they build a map. theyre very efficient at that. the problem is, the search time, the search methodology is going to basically take everything out by ten times as long. so if youre not in the right spot, youre going to b...

Able to pick up sounds that they think could be the actual pinger. if you look at the two spots, one of them down here, 900 miles off the coast. this one up here, 1,000 miles off the coast. 372 miles apart, they cant be from the same pinger, can they? weve learned that the pinger only puts out a frequency thats detectible from about two miles away. >> yeah. i agree. no, it is not likely that they are, especially with the dwoevis the chinese were using when they claim they heard the pinger. that ...

We have breaking news from tonights news conference in perth. the search for the towed pinger locator goes on. a search that could take a very long time. rosa flores took a pinger out on to rhode islands narragansett bay to show some of the obstacles they may encounter in the indian ocean. >> reporter: this is what a ping sounds like. >> very high frequency. >> the critical sound searchers are hoping to hear in the deep and rough waters of the indian ocean. its deep and its dark, its salty, its ...