No more signals have been
detected since Saturday's momentary jubilation aboard an Australian
navy ship some 1,100 miles (1,750 kilometers) northwest of Perth --
pulses consistent with those sent by a flight data recorder and cockpit
voice recorder, explained Angus Houston, head of the Australian-based
part of the massive search effort.
This lack of new info,
and the fact no wreckage of the Boeing 777-200ER has been discovered,
makes searchers "more cautious," said U.S. Navy Cmdr. William Marks of
the U.S. 7th Fleet.
"As hours pass," he said, "our optimism is fading away, ever so slightly.
Wednesday marks 33 days
since the jetliner mysteriously disappeared from radar screens, a
stretch marked by loads of speculation, lots of heartache from relatives
of the 239 people aboard the plane and few solid facts about what
happened.
It's also three days
since the date which the batteries powering the flight recorders'
locator beacons were certified to be working. Stored in a plane's
detail, they are designed to begin sending off distinct, high-pitched
signals as soon as they come in contact with water.
Authorities are still
listening, mindful the pulses could last a few days longer and that
sending in submersibles could ruin chances of hearing them again.
Retired Lt. Col. Michael Kay of the Royal Air Force told CNN the
batteries can operate up to 40 days.
"We need to continue ...
for several days right up to when the point at which there's absolutely
no doubt that the pinger batteries will have expired," said Houston.
Discovery of possible 'locator beacon' pulses gives hope
Searchers are looking
for debris across a 30,000-square-miles zone. That's large and
challenging, but still pales compared to the once nearly 3 million
miles, at sea and on land, the searchers were scouring for signs of the
lost aircraft a few weeks ago.
Authorities greatly
shrank that area after analyzing satellite data to determine Flight 370
had set off from Kuala Lumpur toward Beijing, turned around to go back
over the Malay Peninsula, then ended up in the southern Indian Ocean.
Why? No one really knows.
The best chance to
answer that question may rest wherever the plane -- and its so-called
black boxes, with their trove of information about the plane and its
movements -- now resides.
Search planes dispatched
day after day looking for evidence of the missing airliner -- a
floating wing, a seat cushion, anything -- thus far have come up empty.
The latest, greatest hopes have come from crews listening underwater for signs of Flight 370.
The first such possible
breakthrough came last Friday and Saturday, when a Chinese ship detected
pulses that may have been from the plane. No more have been heard
since.
Wing Cmdr. Andy Scott of
New Zealand's defense forces told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that "it appears
that area" around the Chinese find "has been ruled out for now." There
was no immediate confirmation of anything being ruled out from the
Australian agency heading the search, and the live ship tracking website
MarineTraffic.com indicated early Wednesday that the British ship HMS
Echo continues to trawl in that area.
The focus remains
intense around the site of Saturday's discovery from Australia's Ocean
Shield. It used more advanced detection gear from the Chinese vessel and
was found some 375 miles away, leading Houston to believe they are
separate signals.
The first signal, detected by a towed pinger locator, persisted for more than two hours; a second went on for about 13 minutes.
"The audible signal
sounds to me just like an emergency locator beacon," Houston said. "We
are encouraged that we are very close to where we need to be."
Big decisions on search could be coming
That's why so much focus in recent days has been placed on locating the flight recorders.
Not that it will be
easy. Beyond the dwindling battery life, there's all the ocean to
contend with: The Ocean Shield signals were in water about 2.6 miles
deep, leaving a number of things could literally get in the way of or
otherwise disrupt the pulses.
Searchers' intent not to
roil the waters any further is why air and seaborne traffic in that
find area is being limited, and why there is no rush to put in
underwater drones to take photos.
"Until we have stopped the pinger search, we will not deploy the submersible," Houston said.
And it's not as if, if
more pulses are detected, they'll lead down in a straight line to the
flight recorders. As is, the pings that were heard could have emanated
from anywhere within a 5-miles radius, said Mary Schiavo, a former
inspector general for the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Scott said Wednesday's
search area will be farther west from where it was a day earlier,
looking for debris that may have shifted if the pulses detected from the
Australian ship are valid. While the search area has been bigger, there
are still many unknowns.
"It's a large task that's still ahead of us," Scott said early Wednesday.
Finding more signals
could narrow the search area. Without them, authorities could then start
the painstaking process of using side-scanning sonar to try to find the
aircraft on the ocean's bottom.
"I think we're in a very
critical stage of the search, and some big decisions are going to have
to be made in the next week or so," said Peter Goelz, former managing
director of the National Transportation Safety Board.
Pings without wreckage 'befuddling'
The absence of wreckage
near these detected signals leaves some skeptical, worried that the
Chinese and Australian ship's finds could be yet another false lead in
an investigation that's been full of them.
Acknowledging "a very
high-speed vertical impact" could explain the lack of aircraft remnants,
CNN aviation analyst Miles O'Brien said there's reason to be cautious.
"It's either the most extraordinary event, or those pings weren't real," O'Brien said. "It's somewhat befuddling."
Still, it's not like the
plane just went down. And the area searchers are now focusing was hit
two weeks ago by a cyclone with winds in excess of 160 mph, likely
pushing debris with it.
"This was an area that
looked like a washing machine in the first place, but now we know it was
even worse than that," said CNN meteorologist Chad Myers.
All this adds up to yet
more uncertainty, which is why some relatives of Flight 370's passengers
aren't expecting a resolution just yet.
"Until they physically
locate the bulk of the plane with the black box intact and passenger
bodies, I won't believe it," said Sarah Bajc, the partner of American
passenger Philip Wood.
In Bejing, some kin such
as Steve Wang -- whose mother was on the Malaysia Airlines plane --
still cling to hope even as they continue to be run through the wringer.
"We're just going
through so many kinds of emotion," said Wang. "... Desperate, sad and
helpless -- something like that. Everything." LINK
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