MH 370 Search Goes Underwater

Australian officials directed U.S. Navy submersibles under the sea's floor in their quest to find the missing jetliner. New recent developments have occurred, as searchers found a cell phone signal thought to be the co-pilots and an oil slick.

The Bluefin-21's first deployment in the 38-day search strategy, follows last week's findings of locator beacon sounds, which may be from the plane's black boxes. Australian chief search coordinator Angus Houston stated, "We haven't had a single detection in six days...It's time to go underwater". Similar technology was administered to find Air France Flight 477 in 2009.

Houston added regarding the Bluefin-21's rapid locator capabilities, "This will be a slow and painstaking process". The instrument and its controllers will need twenty-four hours to define each region of the search area; sixteen hours to map it, two hours to arrive, an additional two hours to return to surface level, and four hours designated to researcher's downloading and analyzing the found data. It is predicted to take up to two month to cover the complicated search area's entirety.

CNN reported that a U.S. official claimed a Penang, Malaysia mobile phone tower detected the co-pilot's cell phone, that was looking for service during the time of the plane's disappearance. The tower is located approximately 250 miles from the airplane's vanishing point. The Ocean Shield search ship was reported to have found an oil slick yesterday. Houston claimed, "I stress the source of the oil has yet to be determined, but the oil slick is approximately 5,500 meters (3.4 miles) downwind ... from the vicinity of the detections of the TPL on Ocean Shield".

Quest efforts have begun underwater, as the locator's batteries have most probably expired. CNN ocean search specialist and analyst Rob McCollum explained, "Every good effort has been expended, but it's now looking like the batteries are failing, and it's time to start mowing the lawn, as we say, time to start scanning the sea floor". Prolonged sadness is the emotion most felt by the victim's relatives, as they continue to wait for any real concrete developments regarding MH 370.