Searchers Get Robot Squad Ready to Hunt for Malaysian Jet Debris
Don't expect instant gratification in the race to recover wreckage from the missing Malaysia Airlines jet, even if searchers confirm they're hearing pings from the Boeing 777's black box.
The
operation won't be like the thrill-a-minute treasure hunt in the movie
"Titanic": Identifying the wreckage will require painstaking passes by a
torpedo-like autonomous robot called Bluefin 21, which will be
operating at the very limit of its range.
If the side-scan sonar
readings identify a field of debris, the robot sub will go over the
territory again with high-resolution video cameras, pinpointing the
locations of the black-box recorders and other evidence.
It's
only after those clues have been collected that searchers can send down
yet another kind of robot, connected to a search ship and capable of
bringing debris up to the surface.
The first part of the
task will require programming the Bluefin 21 in advance to look for
something the size of a shoebox in a search area that could span
hundreds of square miles.
'"Anytime
you're trying to find something that small in an area that large, it is
going to be exceedingly complicated and difficult," Chris Johnson,
spokesman for the U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command, told NBC News. "It
takes a huge amount of patience. This is one of the most difficult
things the Navy does."
Job 1: Confirming the pings
The U.S. Navy has contracted with Maryland-based Phoenix International Holdings
to lend underwater assets to the international search, operating from
the Australian ship Ocean Shield. Phoenix has played a lead role in
searches for sunken debris ranging from a Civil War ship to real-life surveys of the Titanic shipwreck to the Air France jet that was lost in 2009.
Johnson
said the estimated cost of the Navy-Phoenix operation is $3.6 million,
which covers transporting and operating the Bluefin 21 as well as a
device that picked up what could be black-box pings.
U.S. Navy via EPA
The device, known as a
towed pinger locator, was dragged behind the Ocean Shield over an area
of the Indian Ocean roughly 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) west of
Perth, Australia. The locator detected pulsed signals on the right frequency for the black boxes, for as much as two hours at a time. Detection equipment aboard a Chinese ship reportedly picked up the signals as well.
"The
new developments over the last few hours have been the most promising
lead we have had," Malaysian Transport Minister Hishamuddin Hussein told reporters in Kuala Lumpur on Monday.
He spoke nearly a month after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared
on March 8, as it flew from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people
aboard.
Robo-sub ready to go
If the go-ahead is
given by the Joint Agency Coordination Center in Perth — the
headquarters for the international search — the Bluefin 21 would begin a
pre-programmed survey of the seafloor.
One of the Bluefin 21's most recent claims to fame was its role in the search for wreckage from Amelia Earhart's airplane, which disappeared in the Pacific in 1937.
Australian Defence Force via Reuters
The 16-foot-long
(5-meter-long) robot, built by Massachusetts-based Bluefin Robotics, is
built for surveys that go as deep as 2.8 miles (4,500 meters). That's
just about how far down the seafloor is in the Indian Ocean search area.
Searchers
typically program the propeller-driven robo-sub with the coordinates
for a back-and-forth search that's been compared to mowing a lawn.
First, the vehicle will survey the area with side-scan sonar. It can
stay underwater for 25 hours at a time, and cover up to 40 square miles
in the course of a day, Johnson said. The sonar readings are stored in
the robot's removable memory, and retrieved once the sub comes back up
topside.
If the sonar scan turns
up objects of interest, the Bluefin 21 would be refitted with
high-resolution cameras for a visual survey. The robot would have to
dive closer to the seafloor for a concentrated survey of the target
area. When the imagery is brought back up, analysts would pore over the
pictures, looking for the shoebox-sized cockpit voice recorder and
flight data recorder.
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