Chinese Ship Again Picks Up Pings or Pulses, Which May be from Black Box of Missing Jet; Second Ship Hears Pings in Second Location

BALTIMORE, Maryland April 5, 2014 - The HMS Ocean Shield, an Australian Ship, has picked up an underwater sound that has the possibility of being from a missing Malaysian Airlines Jet with 239 persons aboard. A Chinese Ship has also heard a sound in a different area of the Southern Indian Ocean, and now they report having heard the sound a second time. At a news conference late Saturday night (EDT) the head of the multinational search team said the second pick up of sounds lasted for much longer than the first and is a much more hopeful development.

Early on Saturday morning (about 7:58 am EDT), the Chinese News Agency Xinhua announced that a Chinese ship in the prime search area of the Southern Indian Ocean had detected a pulse signal that coorectly matched the pulse that would be emitted by the black box aboard the missing Malaysian Airlines Jet that went missing more than four weeks ago. The report identified the search ship as the Haixun 01, a ship that had only joined the search one day earlier. At a news conference at 11:30 am Australian Time Sunday morning (11:30 pm EDT Saturday night), the Chief Coordinator of the Joint Agency Coordination Center (JACC), Angus Houston, said both sounds need further study before anything substantive is known. But the sounds picked up from the Chinese ship late Saturday, the second time the boat picked up these sounds, lasted for some 90 seconds, a length of time that makes the sound much more likely to be a substantive sound that may be from the missing jet.

When the Chinese News Agency Xinhua reported the first incident early Saturday morning, there was skepticism amongst the searchers and those coordinating it because the news agency heard about the discovery before other searchers did. In fact, the Chinese never did contact Mr. Houston or his team. When the sound was heard a second time, Mr. Houston called Beijing and was told the details of both audio discoveries. The first time the Chinese Ship - called the Haixun 0! - heard the sound it only lasted a few fleeting seconds, but was at the correct place on the meter reading so-called megahertz to be from the missing jet. When the sounds were heard the second time they lasted for a comparitively long time, some 90 seconds, and therefore they have caught Mr. Houston and his team's attention. They contacted the ship they obviously consider their best, the HMS Ocean Shield, and ordered it to respond to the location where the Haixun 01 had picked up the pulses. But at that point the crew of the Ocean Shield reported that they too had picked up a sound and were in the process of analyzing it. Right now, the sound picked up by the Ocean Shield is apparently not as promising as the one picked up by the Haixun 01. But it has enough merit for the Shield to remain on sight to analyze it as completely as is necessary.

There is an unfortunate caveat to the location of the sounds picked up by the Chinese Ship. Both times it was heard in an area where the ocean is some 4,700 meters deep. If my math is correct, that means the ocean where the plane might be is about three miles deep.