Originally Posted by
trailboss99
Good Lord, that is a massive piece of work by Inmarsat and a lot of people owe them a big thanks for what is a remarkable piece of insight. If they can refine it even further they deserve a bloody gold medal. The maths involved in this would be beyond most mortals.
Inmarsat and AAIB appear to have applied some genuine boffin power to this and come up with a previously unused approach to solve this.
The Australian Defence Minister has made a recent announcement - depths in the area are ~3,500 meters / nearly 11,500 feet - over twice as deep as AF447, iirc. Currently at Sea State 7, the
HMAS Success has had to reposition 120 km south due to dangerous sea conditions; no search today.
US Towed Pinger Locator to be installed on HMAS Ocean Shield in Perth 28 Mar for "black box" search. (BBC)
Korea is sending yet another P-3 Orion and an C-130H Hercules. China is sending the
Xuě Lóng ("Snow Dragon"), most recently involved in the Antarctic rescue of the Russian research vessel
Akademik Shokalskiy. The UK is sending the
HMS Echo. The "black box" is powered for 25 - 30 days, so they are working hard to locate the "black box" before it ceases pinging and adds a level of difficulty to the search and recovery operation.