Page 21 - Tpl News Today

That battery, i would call that the number one challenge we have. there are other things in the ocean that could produce noise at this frequency, thats certainly possible. however, you know, when we initially detected the sound, it was very consistent with what you would expect coming from a black box, and there were two especially encouraging signs. first, is that as the t.p.l. traversed in its path, the signal got stronger and stronger, and then as it crossed where we think the line of bearing...

That is designed to operate at depth. the deeper you are, the better quality of signals that you can expect. and secondly, its being heard twice by people who are highly trained and actually trying to get the effect that they got. so its a tremendous achievement when you consider that to get to this very spot to deploy the tpl has taken an awful lot of work by the people in the back room. its nothing short of miraculous. >> yeah, and i think it was you who said that it was going to take a bit of...

Verifying that the latest leads are in fact the missing plane. if it does turn out that the plane is in this spot in the southern indian ocean, it will be so remarkable. remember there was no physical evidence guiding the ocean shield to this spot. it was simply a team of experts who did some amazing math and said look, go here, this is our best guess where youre going to find something. they put down this tpl and happened to hear a ping in the final hours, really, of the black box battery life....

Pinger locator. tpl. that is strapped to an australian ship -- its what could possibly be signals to the planes black box. today it is all about re-establishing those things. once that happens, the navys mini-subwill be deployed to snap pictures of the ocean floor, which could possibly maybe provide concrete evidence of where the plane ended up? be it nbcs ian williams thats in perth, australia for you. >> it is being described as the most promising lead. the best information in a month of fruit...

Sound under water, may be more prob able when we are talking about the australian ship picking up some audible noise some 350 miles away from where the chinese vessels did. those reports are being very closely guarded. it is being referred to an acoustic event. we dont know what kind of noise that they have heard. you have to remember when you are tieing a tpl through the water, it is on the end of a very long cable, around 6,000 meters or so. you have a lot of cable in the matter and you hear s...

Australians that all of the assets or at least a great bulk of the assets were streaming towards that location to start their very hard work. what happens to all the other search areas now? >> they go on hold. they dont go away. all right? so they go on hold. and they work with the most pertinent and the most precious of those -- those zones right now. thats going to be the ping from the chinese. now, that deep zone i talked about a second ago, that tpl could have been picking up the same signal...

Give more information. because what they appear to be doing is moving this box around and not really explaining why. so they have to explain why to us. thats an interesting question. >> david gallo, i want to bring you in here. as theyre moving these assets around and changing the search area, now they have the towed pinger locater out there. how confident are you that the batteries in the black box are even still working, even still pinging? >> thats anyones guess, john. heres the thing about t...

Flight 370. but time is running out for the pingers battery life. >> what theyre trying to do is get ears in the water while the pinger is still going. >> reporter: this is the sound its listening for. the towed pinger locater, or tpl, is 30 inches long and weighs just 70 pounds. its towed behind the ship that operates it, in this case the ocean shield, and generally moves at about 3 knots. that means with 150 miles or so to cover, just a sliver of the search area, it will take days. >> it does ...

Its a u.s. navy hydrophone or underwater microphone called a towed pinger locater. search teams are counting on it to find the pinger mounted directly on the black boxes from flight 370. but time is running out for the pingers battery life. >> what theyre trying to do is get ears in the water while the pinger is still going. >> reporter: this is the sound its listening for. the towed pinger locater, or tpl, is 30 inches long and weighs just 70 pounds. its towed behind the ship that operates it, ...

Do they have to explain why to us? thats an interesting question. >> david gallo, i want to bring you in here. as theyre moving these assets around and changing the search area, now they have the towed pinger locater out there. how confident are you that the batteries in the black box are even still working, even still pinging? >> thats anyones guess, john. heres the thing about that. going over an area and not hearing the pinger doesnt mean that the aircraft is not there. the tpl is useful if y...