April 10, 2014 -- Updated 1247 GMT (2047 HKT)
A plane has detected a possible signal from sonar buoys deployed in the
search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, according to the
Australian agency coordinating the search. FULL STORY
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Q&A
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CNN JOINS SEARCH
Malaysia Airlines plane search: New signal possibly detected
April 10, 2014 -- Updated 1408 GMT (2208 HKT)
Australian plane detects new signals
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- NEW: "Somebody in the cockpit" may have been trying to avoid detection, aviation analyst says
- NEW: But former transportation official says there may be other reason for jet's altitude dip
- The signal was detected near the Australian vessel Ocean Shield
- "The acoustic data will require further analysis," search agency's chief coordinator says
A search plane has
detected a possible signal -- the fifth so far -- from the locator
beacons from the missing jet's so-called black boxes, the Australian
agency coordinating the search announced.
"The acoustic data will
require further analysis overnight, but shows potential of being from a
man-made source," said retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, the
agency's chief coordinator.
A senior Malaysian
government official and another source involved in the investigation
divulged Thursday a number of details about the flight:
Sources: Malaysia plane dropped altitude
CNN joins MH370 search over Indian Ocean
Search area for Flight 370 shrinks
Photos: The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
• Malaysian air force
search aircraft were scrambled around 8 a.m., soon after Malaysia
Airlines reported that its plane was missing, Malaysian sources told
CNN. The aircraft took off before authorities corroborated data
indicating that the plane turned back westward, a senior Malaysian
government official told CNN.
• But the air force did
not inform the Department of Civil Aviation or search and rescue
operations until three days later, March 11, a source involved in the
investigation told CNN.
• MH370's pilot, Capt.
Zaharie Ahmad Shah, was the last person on the jet to speak to air
traffic controllers, telling them "Good night, Malaysian
three-seven-zero," Malaysian sources told CNN. The sources said there
was nothing unusual about his voice, which betrayed no indication that
he was under stress. One of the sources, an official involved in the
investigation, told CNN that police played the recording to five other
Malaysia Airlines pilots who knew the pilot and co-pilot. "There were no
third-party voices," the source said.
• Malaysia Airlines
Flight 370 disappeared from military radar for about 120 nautical miles
after it crossed back over the Malaysian Peninsula, sources say. Based
on available data, this means the plane must have dipped in altitude to
between 4,000 and 5,000 feet, a senior Malaysian government official and
a source involved in the investigation tell CNN.
The dip could have been
programmed into the computers controlling the plane as an emergency
maneuver, said aviation expert David Soucie.
"The real issue here is
it looks like -- more and more -- somebody in the cockpit was directing
this plane and directing it away from land," said CNN aviation analyst
and former National Transportation Safety Board Managing Director Peter
Goelz. "And it looks as though they were doing it to avoid any kind of
detection."
But former U.S.
Department of Transportation Inspector General Mary Schiavo was not
convinced. She said the reported dip could have occurred in response to a
loss of pressure, to reach a level where pressurization was not needed
and those aboard the plane would have been able to breathe without
oxygen, or to get out of the way of commercial traffic, which typically
flies at higher altitudes.
That would have been
necessary had the plane's transponder been turned off and it lost
communications. "If you don't have any communications, you need to get
out of other traffic," Schiavo said.
"We still don't have any
motive and any evidence of a crime yet," she said, adding that most
radar can track planes at altitudes below 4,000 feet, so the plane's
descent may not have indicated any attempt for whoever was controlling
it to hide.
She held out hope that the black boxes hold the answers and that they will be found soon.
Buoys detected signal
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The possible signal
heard by a search plane was picked up through sonar buoys equipped to
receive such electronic data and was detected near the Australian ship
Ocean Shield, said the Joint Agency Coordination Centre.
Crews have been narrowing the search area in the Indian Ocean.
Up to 10 military
aircraft, four civil aircraft and 13 ships were to assist in Thursday's
search for the Boeing 777-200ER, which was carrying 239 people when it
vanished on March 8 on a fight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing.
Three of the vessels --
the Ocean Shield to the north, and the British HMS Echo and Chinese
Haixun 01 to the south -- were focusing under water.
Aircraft and ships
spotted a number of objects during Wednesday's search, but could recover
only a small number, none of which appeared linked to MH370, the JACC
said.
Thursday's search area
is about 22,400 square miles (58,000 square kilometers), centered some
1,417 miles (2,280 kilometers) northwest of Perth. That's roughly the
size of West Virginia.
But the latest search
area is about three quarters of the size of the area that teams combed
the day before and far smaller than what it was a few weeks ago.
Thursday's underwater
search area was bracketed by the Ocean Shield at the northern end and
the Chinese ship Haixun 01 and HMS Echo at the southern end.
The Ocean Shield first
picked up two sets of underwater pulses on Saturday that were of a
frequency close to that used by the locator beacons. It heard nothing
more until Tuesday, when it reacquired the signals twice. The four
signals were within 17 miles of one another.
"I believe we are
searching in the right area, but we need to visually identify wreckage
before we can confirm with certainty that this is the final resting
place of MH370," Houston said Wednesday.
In another piece of
encouraging news, authorities analyzed the signals picked up over the
weekend and concluded that they probably came from specific electronic
equipment rather than from marine life, which can make similar sounds.
"They believe the
signals to be consistent with the specification and description of a
flight data recorder," Houston said. "I'm now optimistic that we will
find the aircraft or what's left of the aircraft in the not too distant
future."
Thursday is Day 34 in
the search. Time is of the essence: The batteries powering the flight
recorders' locator beacons are certified to emit high-pitched signals
for only 30 days after they get wet.
"The signals are getting
weaker," Houston said Wednesday, "which means we're either moving away
from the search area or the pinger batteries are dying."
CNN's Nic Robertson and journalists Ivy Sam and Chan Kok Leong in Kuala Lumpur contributed to this report.
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