Page 12 - Ocean Bottom News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

The lawn, start to scan the sea floor. >> and captain gurley, it seems that the battery is either dead or it's dying. if they haven't heard anything in five days, i mean, why wouldn't they already have made the decision either publicly or at least to send the bluefin into the water. >> well, the usaustralians have wanted to give every possible chance to pick up the ping. the next phase of the search, the slowest phase of the search, which is mowing the lawn, as rob said, at the ocean bottom. so any more information that they can glean over the next couple of days could save weeks in the other ...

Of questions to know in a month or two when we find it on the ocean bottom. it is important to remember there's three different searches going on. the first is surface debris. it seems to me the australians are trying to move the area around to check places they haven't looked before. the second search for the pinger locaters. that's been successful. don't downplay the fact of solid contact. maybe within a week, the very meticulous search of the ocean bottom. >> you are not discouraged there isn't a redetection of that pinger song, last sound, in five days? >> no. again, when you look at the m...

>> they go in all directions, what you are doing is tightening up the box, it's just kind of a technical difference, but it's tightening up the box. so as they go about that, that obviously eliminates the need for the autonomous underwater vehicle to map and look for the wreckage itself. when they get into that mode and decide no more pings, we're talking about a long period of time to go through that process. it's six or seven times longer to cover any specific square foot of ocean bottom with the -- the uav as opposed to the device listens for the pingers. they want to use that potential of ...

From these pingers before they absolutely go dead? >> well, i agree with rob that i think we may be reading a little bit too much into the lack of signals since tuesday. the fact that we had very strong contact on saturday over two hours held, and then reacquired the signal on tuesday i think is the key point. at this point, the batteries are, have either died or are about to die based on how the manufacturer rates their life span. in the next step it will be to start the ocean bottom search, but that doesn't need to be rushed into and the australians have been slow and deliberate to give ever...

Here. i mean, we want to find the wreckage. we want to do it as methodically as possible and expeditiously, but at this point, we're just recovering wreckage. we're not rescuing people. so we should do this cautiously. >> a lot of experts have suggested there's some thick silt at the ocean bottom over there on the floor that could really complicate this search. what are you hearing about that? >> i really don't know what the bottom's like, but it could very well be silted over and the box could be partially buried, but the fact we're hearing the signals tells me at least something's protruding...