Oil slick in MH370 search zone
Update: An oil slick has been detected in the Indian Ocean search area for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane as hopes of picking up more acoustic signals from its black box are abandoned.
Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre chief Angus Houston said today the Australian Defence Force vessel Ocean Shield had ceased searching for more acoustic signals with its towed pinger locator.
But an automated underwater vehicle would be deployed this evening to conduct sonar searches for wreckage.
Retired Air Chief Marshal Houston said no acoustic pings had been detected since Tuesday last week and it was now time for the next step in the search.
He said it was extremely unlikely on day 38 of the search that there was any power left in the flight data and cockpit voice recorder batteries.
They have a maximum life of 40 days while the manufacturer says the shelf life is 30 days.
“We haven’t had a single detection in six days,” Mr Houston said.
“It’s time to go underwater.”
Mr Houston said a two litre sample had been taken of the oil slick, which was seen about 5500m downwind and downsea from where two pairs of acoustic signals were detected last week.
The sample will be tested when it arrives ashore. That will take several days.
“I stress the source of the oil is yet to be determined,” Air Chief Marshal Houston said.
The oil slick, combined with the four pings picked up on April 5 and April 8, represent the most promising lead in the search so far, he said.
“We need to pursue this lead as far as possible.”
Analysis of the signals had allowed a reduced and manageable search area to be defined, he said.
Mr Houston reiterated that the location of the missing plane could not be confirmed until there had been a visual sighting of the wreckage, with the autonomous underwater vehicle Bluefin 21 equipped to take images.
Each underwater mission will take 24 hours to complete, including the downloading of data. And there would be no indication of whether the vehicle had encountered anything until that data had been viewed, he said.
Mission number one - commencing this evening - will cover an area of 40 square kilometres.
Mr Houston said the robotic vessel could not go any deeper than 4500 metres, which is the estimated depth in the search area.
If the water is found to be deeper, with the sidescan sonar producing a high resolution map of the sea floor, another much larger vessel with wreckage recovery capability will be deployed.
Mr Houston said that was “being looked at as we speak”.
Little was known about the underwater terrain, but it was rolling and not sharply mountainous, he said.
“This is an area which is new to man,” he said.
What is known is that silt is thick in the area, which could complicate the search.
He said it was important to be realistic about the prospects of finding anything.
“It may be very difficult. This will be a slow and painstaking process.”
Mr Houston also said an acoustic signal picked up by the Chinese vessel Haixun-01 on April 5 had been “discounted as a credible transmission”.
South-easterly winds and possible showers are expected on Monday with sea swells up to 1.5 metres and visibility up to five kilometres.
Earlier today the Sunday Times reported that an investigator had said the missing plane was "thrown around like a fighter jet" just moments after losing contact with air officials in an attempt to avoid being detected on radars.
The paper claims the passenger jet carry 239 climbed 10,000 feet above the designated cruising altitude of 45,000 feet before plummeting to just 5000 feet.
“It was being flown very low at very high speed. And it was being flown to avoid radar,” said a source close to the investigation, according to the Sunday Times.
Malaysia has rejected claims that phone calls were made from missing flight MH370 before it vanished, but refused to rule out any possibility in a so far fruitless investigation over the cause of the jet's disappearance.
The New Straits Times, quoting an anonymous source, had reported Saturday that co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid made a call which ended abruptly, possibly "because the aircraft was fast moving away from the (telecommunications) tower".
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, right, and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak talk during their meeting at the Commonwealth Parliament Offices in Perth. Photo: AP.
There had also been unconfirmed reports of calls by the Malaysia Airlines plane's captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah before or during the flight.
Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told reporters Sunday that authorities had no knowledge of any calls made from the jet's cockpit.
"As far as I know, no," he said when asked if any calls had been made.
However, he added that he did not want to speculate on "the realm of the police and other international agencies" investigating the case.
"I do not want to disrupt the investigations that are being done now, not only by the Malaysian police but the FBI, MI6, Chinese intelligence and other intelligence agencies," he said at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur.
Hishammuddin also said no passenger on the plane had been cleared in the criminal investigation into the fate of the flight, clarifying an earlier indication from Malaysia's police chief.
"The Inspector-General of Police said at that particular point in time there is nothing to find suspicion with the passenger manifesto but ... unless we find more information, specifically the data in the black box, I don't think any chief of police will be in a position to say they have been cleared."
Royal New Zealand Air Force P-3 Orion's captain, Wing Comdr. Rob Shearer watches out of the window of his aircraft while searching for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean. Photo: AP.
The police chief also clarified last week that passengers had not categorically been cleared as the investigation was ongoing.
Pilots Fariq and Zaharie have come under intense scrutiny since the plane vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board on March 8, with still no clue as to the cause of the disappearance.
Investigators last month indicated that the flight was deliberately diverted and its communication systems manually switched off as it was leaving Malaysian airspace, triggering a criminal investigation by police which has revealed little so far.
A number of theories have been put forward, including hijacking, a terrorist plot or a pilot gone rogue, with authorities grasping at straws as to the fate of the plane without crucial data from the jet's "black box", which has yet to be located, and no wreckage found.
Retired Australian Air Chief Marshall Angus Houston speaks about the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 at a press conference in Perth. Photo: AP.
