Search for Missing Jet by Submersible Craft Coming Up Empty; Change is Search Method Under Consideration

BALTIMORE, Maryland April 21, 2014 - Easter has passed and the search for the missing Malaysian Jet carrying 239 passengers has still not generated any certain results. The search and mapping operation of the ocean floor being carried out by the unmanned submersible craft Bluefin-21 is said to be halfway through the first planned phase. The area being mapped was decided using what are thought to be pulses or pings from the black boxes on the missing plane. They were "heard" some four times near what would have been the end of the battery life of the two black boxes. The pings or pulses indicate that the jet is in a relatively small area of the floor of the Indian Ocean some 2000 to 2322 kilometers west northwest of Perth, Australia.

So far, the submersible craft has completed seven of its planned dives. As this article is posted at 11:40 am on Monday, April 21, 2014, the eighth planned dive is underway. So far, neither the sonar or photographic capabilities of Bluefin 21 has produced a positive result. The entire first phase should be completed by midweek, according to a release by the Australian Joint Agency Coordination Centre in Perth. Retired Chief Air Marshal Angus Houston is the head of that multi-national group.

Late last week the respected Aviation Blog "Plane Talking," authored by Ben Sandilands in Australia, said there were signs that searchers were about make somewhat dramatic changes in the direction of the search. The searchers have not lost faith in the major tenet of the search; that is, that the jet, which was on a flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Beijing, China when it was lost by radar and lost contact with air traffic controllers between midnight and 1:00 am, local time, on March 8, 2014, then made a dramatic turn, going completely off course, and eventually flying for between seven and eight hours in a southerly direction before running out of fuel and diving into the Southern part of the Indian Ocean in the area where searchers are now concentrating. The method used to track the jet here are so called "handshakes" the plane's on-board data transmitters made with earth-orbiting satellites. On each mission, searchers say that the Bluefin-21 is mapping about 25 square kilometers.

The Prime Minister of Australia, Tony Abbott, said last week, according to the Financial Review, that the surface searches for debris fields from the missing Jet will be changed, and other submersible vehicles brought in. In particular, according to the Financial Review, the submersible used to locate the Air France Jet that crashed in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in 2009 is said to be available, and may be requested by the search team.