Hmmm......
BEIJING - A “seismic event” consistent with an airplane crash has been detected on the sea floor close to where the missing Malaysia Airlines jet lost contact with air traffic control on Saturday, Chinese scientists said Friday.
The signal detected by two stations in Malaysia appeared to indicate that a small tremor occurred on the floor of the sea at 2:55 a.m. about 95 miles south of Vietnam, the scientists said in a statement posted on the website of the University of Science and Technology of China.
"It was a non-seismic zone, therefore judging from the time and location of the event, it might be related to the missing MH370 flight," said the statement. “If it was indeed an airplane crashing into the sea, the seismic wave strength indicated that the crash process was catastrophic.”
The area where the tremor was detected about 70 miles from where the Boeing 777 was last heard from, and 85 minutes after the jet carrying 239 people lost contact, according to South China Morning Post newspaper.
A map of a “seismic event” consistent with an airplane crash on the sea floor close to where missing Malaysia Airlines jet lost contact with air traffic control was released by Chinese scientists on Friday. The black star indicates where the plane lost contact, the red star where the event was detected and the blue triangles show the locations of seismic monitors. The black waves on the bottom right of the map show recording of the tremors.
Satellite images from China on Wednesday appeared to show possible crash debris but it later emerged that a search of the area had found no sign of the plane, and Malaysia officials said the pictures had been released by "mistake."
China is known to be impatient over the lack of progress in the investigation.
There has been no trace of the jet or sign of wreckage despite a search by the navies and military aircraft of more than a dozen countries across Southeast Asia.
On Thursday, the White House said that an additional search area for the missing flight may be opened in the Indian Ocean, significantly broadening the potential location of the plane.
- NBC News' Eric Baculinao, Wendy Min and Bo Gu. Reuters contributed to this report.
Jim:
When Air Egypt flight 990 crashed in WESTLANT on 31 Oct 1999 circa 30 mins after taking off from NY, it was estimated to have impacted the water surface at a very high speed - based on the black box.
Out of pure curiosity about such a unique event, I asked for the IUSS data and identified - as had others before me -the impact as a major source with an apparent duration of less 20-30 seconds and was detected at ranges of hundreds of miles.
There were no follow-on events. It is highly unlikely any bottom impact event involving aircraft wreckage would be acoustically detectable by a sensor at a range beyond direct-path. What we know about submarine wreckage sink-rates (avg: 12-13 knots) also applies to aircraft wreckage - probably even more so since sections of an
aircraft would be significantly lighter per cross-sectional area. I would expect such wreckage is "flutter" (oscillate)
with impact velocities of less than 10 knots, probably less than five knots.
Also note that when the THRESHER pressure-hull collapsed at 2400 feet at 09:18:24 local on 10 April 1963
with an energy release equal to the explosion of 22.500 pounds of TNT at that depth, no seismic event was
detected. When the entire KURSK torpedo load exploded, the submarine was already on the bottom. The energy
release equaled 10,000 pounds of TNT and was seismically detected at a range of 3100 statute miles. Physical contact with the bottom was the key to the seismic detection.
I shall go so far as to say that unless the aircraft in question impacted in very shallow water - probably much
less than 50 feet - or on land - it would not have produced a seismically detectable event. If one cares to conjecture that there was a bomb onboard that exploded after the wreckage settled to the bottom, the strength of the reported seismic signal can be used to quantify the size of that charge.
Pass this info as useful.
Bruce
An official at the USGS National Earthquake Information Center in Colorado reported that the seismic event reported by the Chinese had been examined by NEIC from four separate sensors and that it was consistent with seismic events that occur daily in that area.
Thank you, Jack; so much for the Chinese seismologists.
Suggest my assessment of the essentially zero probability that the event
was aircraft associated be archived, otherwise the logic for the conclusion
may not survive historically.
Bruce
I am just wondering if a high level target i.e. Diego Garcia could have been a consideration. I will say some one other than a "Good Guy" was flying that air craft, (using waypoints to navigate)?? Just my opinion at this point.
Chuck