Page 11 - Surface Debris News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

We certainly have our challenges in front of us. what we're trying to find is an acoustic emission from one of the pingers on the flight data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder. typically, these last -- the batteries last for 30 days. usually they last a little bit longer, and that's what we're trying to find. but what is critical is that the teams that are out there searching for the surface debris, they get good position data on that, and they feed it back to the oceanographers to help us determine a probable point of impact for where the aircraft went in. >> you heard captain matthews t...

For sub antarctic conditions. it can handle the roughest of waters, the biggest of waves. it is being fitted with a submersible robot and u.s. navy pinger locator to listen for those black boxes. >> once we get a detection from the pinger, we will put the underwater vehicle in the water to conduct a side scan to map the debris field. >> reporter: but the searchers must first locate surface debris from the plane to narrow the search area. an effort that has so far been fruitless. >> searching something the size of poland at only a walking pace. you can see we have three to four days before that...

Working this story for us. brian, it's -- that ship that's bringing that ping locater out there, only going to get there thursday. that may be too late to pick up any of these pings. >> yeah, you really get the sense, wolf, this is just such a narrow window of time. but they still think it's worth it to send that vessel out there. as you mentioned, less than a week until the battery life on the pinger of the plane's black box likely runs out. that means a real sense of urgency now. u.s. navy commander, mark matthews, working with those teams, he talked about that urgency. >> typically, these l...

Navy commander mark matthews saying what he's up against. >> we certainly have our challenges in front of us. what we are trying to find an acoustic admission from one of the pingers on the flight data recorder. typically the batteries last for 30 days, usually they last a little bit longer and that's what we're trying to find. what is critical is that the teams out there searching for the surface debris, they get good position data on that and feed it back to the oceanographers to help us determine a probable point of impact from where the aircraft went in. >> and it's so crucial that that is...

Typically the batteries clast for 30 days, usually they last a little bit longer and that's what we're trying to find. what is critical is that the teams out there searching for the surface debris they get good position data on that and they feed it back to the oceanographers to help us determine a probable point of impact for where the aircraft went in. >> you know, there are so many things that will be triggered by a piece of wreckage being found. what they'll do is try to back track and look at the drifts and the currents in the weather and hopefully be able to pinpoint that impact, as well...