A team of Australian researchers looking into the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 released data on Wednesday about an unusual underwater sound recorded around the time the plane vanished.
A team of Australian researchers looking into the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 released data on Wednesday about an unusual underwater sound recorded around the time the plane vanished, though the lead scientist acknowledged the chances it is linked to the jet are slim.
The low-frequency sound was picked up by underwater listening devices in the Indian Ocean off the west coast of Australia on March 8, the same day the Boeing 777 disappeared on a flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing with 239 people on board. Researchers at Curtin University in Western Australia have been analyzing the signal to see if it may be the sound of the plane crashing into the ocean.
But Alec Duncan, who's heading up the research, said the sound appears to have originated well outside the jet's projected flight path that officials determined based on satellite and radar data, and is therefore unlikely to have come from the plane.
"It's one of these situations where you find yourself willing it all to fit together but it really doesn't," said Duncan, senior research fellow with Curtin's Center for Marine Science and Technology. "I'd love to be able to sit here and say, 'Yeah, we've found this thing and it's from the plane' - but the reality is, there's a lot of things that make noise in the ocean."
The noise could have come from a natural event, such as a small earthquake, Duncan said. He put the chances of it being linked to Flight 370 at less than 20 percent.
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(Score: 4, Funny) by Grishnakh on Wednesday June 04 2014, @09:08PM
They need to just throw in the towel, and accept the obvious. This plane was transported into the future, but the future people screwed up and forgot to send it back full of mannequins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by wonkey_monkey on Wednesday June 04 2014, @09:48PM
I both remember and enjoyed that movie, even if no-one else does or did.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 04 2014, @11:33PM
I liked the book, but I don't recall them being filled with mannequins, instead actual bodies.
Haven't read anything Varley for almost 2 decades, I think I am going to look up what he's done since.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday June 05 2014, @02:38PM
I liked the book, but I don't recall them being filled with mannequins, instead actual bodies.
I thought they were some kind of artificial bodies that were mostly indistinguishable from human corpses after the plane crashed.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Friday June 06 2014, @07:29AM
The cast of Jersey Shore?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday June 04 2014, @09:14PM
if (found_plane(MH370)) publish_story(MH370);
else report_real_news(world-MH370-bitcoin);
Is it so hard to comprehend?
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday June 04 2014, @09:15PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday June 04 2014, @09:26PM
That's why I call the practically deprecated report_real_news().
You may also call report_news -no_people -no_soundbites -no_twitter
On that last one, am I the only one getting seriously pissed at how the media keeps quoting anonymous twitter posts, as if any twit's opinion actually mattered?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 04 2014, @09:29PM
Hey, piss off! My opinion counts too!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @02:32PM
Your opinion only matters to yourself, not to anyone else.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 04 2014, @09:30PM
I'm not pissed. But I don't watch 24-hour or any other newstainment source. I think you are starting to understand why that is a good idea.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 04 2014, @09:25PM
So, with the recent release of the Inmarsat raw data, has the problem with the fuzzy math [slate.com] been resolved? If not, then maybe the Inmarsat analysis is flawed and they've been looking in the wrong place all along.
(Score: 2) by bucc5062 on Thursday June 05 2014, @11:12AM
this, thank you.
The more things change, the more they look the same
(Score: 2) by Blackmoore on Wednesday June 04 2014, @09:42PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l1GvDWtccI [youtube.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kaszz on Thursday June 05 2014, @01:28AM
So they found some noise source using mechanical wave (audio) multilateration. Well then drop the speculation and falsify it by having a look at the region? If the new data doesn't fit the existing. It may be because the other data is invalid..
Find data - check - refine methods - repeat.
Just an idea. Metal objects ought to have some physical quantity that makes it stand out? or one could test for ultra low concentration changes of jet fuel? Planes may go out of sight of current human methods but it won't disappear from entropy and entanglement. Meaning it's presence will alter the surroundings and there is a method to find it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @04:41AM
You're probably a big CSI [cbs.com] fan, aren't you? Lab analyses done and all loose ends tied up in under an hour! What's wrong with these clowns that it is taking them so long?
(Score: 2) by evilviper on Thursday June 05 2014, @08:42AM
Right, because the last "look at the region" they took to find the jet, was quick and cheap...
Other data, like the maximum air speed, amount of fuel on-board, etc?
We build lots of metal objects, specifically because those elements are so incredibly numerous in the Earth's crust. Let's see:
"Aluminium is the third most abundant element (after oxygen and silicon), and the most abundant metal in the Earth's crust. It makes up about 8% by weight of the Earth's solid surface." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium [wikipedia.org]
So there you go... Just find some ALUMINUM somewhere in the ocean, and there's (nominally) a 0% chance it'll be a man-made object.
If the jet had any fuel left, it PROBABLY wouldn't have crashed into the ocean in the first place. We're certainly not talking about a full tank, here.
Besides, it's not as if petroleum products get washed into the ocean all the time... From storm drains to mega cargo ships. I'm sure none of them carry any petroleum products into the ocean. And certainly no cracks in the sea floor, where natural petroleum deposits can seep out.
Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday June 05 2014, @12:44PM
> Other data, like the maximum air speed, amount of fuel on-board, etc?
Like satellite data.
Regarding metal body detection. Aluminium is common. But not with that concentration and shape.
(Score: 2) by evilviper on Thursday June 05 2014, @01:22PM
On the contrary, extremely high concentrations of aluminum are all over the place. In such a large area, there are many to be found.
You seem to be operating under the crazy assumption that there's an intact airplane on the ocean floor. That's certain to be incorrect.
Even if there was any truth in any of what you've said, it still wouldn't help anything... The area is huge, and sea water quite effectively blocks both electromagnetic waves, and visible light.
Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday June 06 2014, @02:53AM
Aluminum is very common, but it's common as compounds, not in any kind of pure or refined form. The Washington Monument in D.C. is capped with an aluminum block because at the time pure aluminum was more rare than gold or silver.
But I still don't know how the hell you'd go about scanning such a large area -- on the bottom of the sea no less -- for refined aluminum...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @01:57AM
If it had gold or a fancy association to it, there would be "so called geeks" going after it, but for humans, why waste the money?
(Score: 2) by monster on Thursday June 05 2014, @02:53PM
FTFY
While I'm sympatetic to the families of the people aboard that flight and understand their suffering, I also think that once the chance of survivors is basically zero, keeping the search just because of it is nonsense. They are dead, Jim.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Snotnose on Thursday June 05 2014, @04:19AM
As I told a group of friends a couple days after this plane disappeared, if a whale farts anywhere in any ocean the Navy knows about it. I did some sub work in the early 90's, I have a good idea of the listening posts they had back then looking for Russian subs. I can only imagine they have a much better network nowdays.
So, either the Navy hasn't maintained their remote sonobuoys, or the the Navy knows where and when that plane went down and for whatever reason don't want to tell us.
Or the plane didn't go down in the water, which leads to a whole bunch of other questions....
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 06 2014, @06:30AM
The plane is sitting in a sand pit in Iran waiting to be loaded with a Nuke.
Easy to figure. Think about the things that have happened since.
Think; just think.
It's been nice knowing you. I'm going back to MelmaK!
Alf
(Score: 1) by larku on Thursday June 05 2014, @11:34AM
This as been in our media lately - http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/sailor-katherine-tee-reports-seeing-malaysia-airlines-mh370-on-fire-near-thailand/story-fnizu68q-1226941681483 [news.com.au]