William Jay Marks News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

They may not be synchronized, according to our audio expert here. were they the same sort of signal, or do you know? >> yeah, that's true. they would most likely not be synchronized. and they obviously were consistent with what we would expect from these black boxes. >> so you're getting both, you believe, cvr and fdr? >> that's the initial indication. but once again, without confirmation, real confirmation will come when we can get the side scan sonar out there down there and get an actual picture. >> commander, it's richard quest. just to confirm this, just for absolutely clarity, sir, are y...

Without saying it is. >> right. >> clearly, this is the most promising lead and probably in the search so far. it's probably the best information we have had, you know, that is it's in the right zone. it refines down to where the satellite work that has been done by the international group is. this is as close as we're going to get until they get assets into the water. >> stand by. let's get some more information here. joining me now on the phone is commander william jay marks, u.s. 7th fleet affairs officer. he is out on the uss blueridge right now. what can you tell us about this? >> hello, ...

So and what that will do is in addition to having general information, i can walk you through it a little bit. >> okay, go ahead, commander. >> sure. the way we do it is this was a period of significant detection activity. we heard consecutive pings at about one-second intervals. that was the first indication. at that time, the towed pinger locator was only about 300 meters deep. now that's not as deep as you 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, you turn off all yo...

>> absolutely. >> 100%. is the commander -- >> the commander is there. go ahead. >> commander, do you think that the signal you heard for two hours 20 minutes and the one you heard for 13 minutes were two different ones? >> so we do have -- there was a slight difference in frequency. and so typically, if these were brand-new and sitting right in front of you, they would be at about the same frequency. however, they were at a slightly different frequency, which -- that's the reason we're being very cautious in our optimism. but that could be for any number of reasons, pressure, the type of wate...

Doing. and remember, this only gets to the direction and the location of the black box. the side scan sonar is what is going to get you that visual confirmation. that's really what we need. the tpl, the towed pinger locator, is just to get you in the right spot. and then the crews deploy the bluefin. >> could this have anything to do with the battery -- the battery life being at its end? >> great question. i'm not an expert in the black boxes. but there are so many variables. the battery -- >> i understand that. >> okay. go ahead. michael kay has a question for you. >> hi, commander, it's mich...