10 ms·

MH370 search team finds second shipwreck

168 points by Cyberdog 11y ago

sisk 11y ago
Article on the first uncharted shipwreck discovered back in May, 2015: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-32719284 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-32719284
tristanj 11y ago
If anyone is interested on the current state of the search, the Australian government kindly shares weekly updates on the progress. So far, the team has throughly searched 80,000 square km of seafloor out of the planned 120,000 sq km. They expect to finish the remaining 40,000 sq km by mid-year. If nothing is found by that point, the search will be called off for cost reasons (Australia and Malaysia have spent well over $100m on the search). Best wishes to the team; hopefully they find the plane so we can finally get some closure on this tragedy. Here's a link to their search progress page: http://jacc.gov.au/families/operational_reports/ http://jacc.gov.au/families/operational_reports/
- cantrevealname 11y ago
  > spent well over $100m on the search It sounds huge, but to put a different perspective on this, look at the cost of what was lost: - The Boeing 777-200ER aircraft is worth US$261.5 million[1]. - The average payout for each of the 9/11 victims, including passengers and crew on the planes, was US$1.8 million[2]. We know that MH370 had 239 passengers and crew, so at the same "cost" that would be 239 x 1.8 = US$430.2 million. So the total value of the MH370 loss is at least US$691.7 million. Looked at this way, the $100 million spent on the search so far doesn't seem that much to bring closure to the families and to solve the mystery for legal, technical, and future flight safety reasons. Suppose you lost something very valuable and sentimental, even if you knew it was destroyed, is it unreasonable to spend 15% of its value ($100M/$691.7M = 15%) to find out what happened to it? (Personally, I do think it's worth spending more to keep the search going.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_777 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_777 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11th_Victim_Compensation_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11th_Victim_Compensa...
  - amatix 11y ago
    Though AFAIK Australian and Malaysian taxpayers are picking up the search cost? Whereas Malaysia Airline's insurers are picking up the cost of the plane & family/crew compensation...
    - ricksplat 11y ago
      I don't know what the story is in Malaysia, but where I live any huge payouts by insurance companies ultimately get borne by the consumer (almost equivalent to taxpayer) in the form of increased premiums and levies. It's not tax for sure, but it is effectively an additional set of charges that many people have to pay.
      - woah 11y ago
        Well that is the purpose of insurance.
        ricksplat 11y ago
        I didn't say it was unfair - I was saying that everybody ends up paying for it in the end, even if it's not through direct taxation.
        mikeash 11y ago
        In a case like this, it's not everybody, but airline customers, and in rough proportion to how much they fly. Which is a decent way to distribute the costs.
        ricksplat 11y ago
        > it's not everybody, but airline customers I'm afraid that's just not true. That is certainly the principal, but in reality (in Europe at least) the costs are distributed across the entire consumer-base. The costs are "socialised".
rubberstamp 11y ago
maybe we should start adding some traceable marker with paint or something so that planes won't disappear like this
- kbart 11y ago
  There are better and more reliable technical means. It's simply mindblowing how in XXI century a plane can be lost with all these radars, satellites and transceivers around. There are many technical solutions using already existing technologies for tracking planes, it looks more like organizational and political problem.
  - elthran 11y ago
    Yeah - And that mystery is why its so important to find this plane in particular - all we really have now is wild mass guessing
  - ivanmilles 11y ago
    On the contrary. If you look at the projected search area, it's a huge swath of deep ocean. A plane is very small. Once it breaks up against the waves it's really, really small. The debris sinks into silt at the bottom of a deep ocean. Currents spread them out. Even if we knew where it went down, finding it is a difficult problem. On top of that, we don't have radar tracking over the oceans. Transcievers don't communicate all the time while in flight. There are long periods of time where you are outside any national radar system. Compounded, it's entirely reasonable to lose a plane. There are 15-20 planes that have never been found since the 1980s.
    - gsnedders 11y ago
      AF447 has to be the typical example of this: we had a good idea of where it crashed, having found debris within 48 hours of the crash, and yet it took nearly two years to find the wreckage.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      In other words, 'kbart is right. We could track planes over the water, but for some reasons we don't bother. Not the future we've been promised. Maybe MH370 will make us start caring though.
randomsearch 11y ago
> The hunt for MH370 no longer makes headlines Irony.
- pc86 11y ago
  What is ironic about that?
  - borplk 11y ago
    He means the search just did make headline
zeristor 11y ago
They've scanned 80,000 km, and found two ship wrecks. Just with a bit of reality testing I would have thought they would have found quite a few more. Over the last few hundred years a lot of ships must have passed through that area, and with the rough seas a fair proportion of them have sunk. How many may they have missed?
- fdej 11y ago
  The scanned area is still just 1/1000 of the Indian Ocean, and very far from the coast. Finding two ships doesn't sound so bad to me.
- WatchDog 11y ago
  Its a quite remote area of the ocean away from major shipping routes.
Shivetya 11y ago
So how many ship wrecks are assumed to be in the areas they are searching? Finding two doesn't sound like many but granted shipping lanes have changed through history
wycx 11y ago
Does anyone know if datasets generated by the search e.g. bathymetry are being made public?
- TranquilMarmot 11y ago
  Yes, here's a nice article about the bathymetry: http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/2014/mh370-bathymetric-survey-fact-sheet.aspx http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/2014/mh370-bathymetric-s... And a link to the data itself: http://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/marine/bathymetry http://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/marine/bathymetry

168 points by Cyberdog 11y ago

sisk 11y ago

Article on the first uncharted shipwreck discovered back in May, 2015: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-32719284 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-32719284

tristanj 11y ago

If anyone is interested on the current state of the search, the Australian government kindly shares weekly updates on the progress. So far, the team has throughly searched 80,000 square km of seafloor out of the planned 120,000 sq km. They expect to finish the remaining 40,000 sq km by mid-year. If nothing is found by that point, the search will be called off for cost reasons (Australia and Malaysia have spent well over $100m on the search). Best wishes to the team; hopefully they find the plane so we can finally get some closure on this tragedy. Here's a link to their search progress page: http://jacc.gov.au/families/operational_reports/ http://jacc.gov.au/families/operational_reports/

cantrevealname 11y ago
> spent well over $100m on the search It sounds huge, but to put a different perspective on this, look at the cost of what was lost: - The Boeing 777-200ER aircraft is worth US$261.5 million[1]. - The average payout for each of the 9/11 victims, including passengers and crew on the planes, was US$1.8 million[2]. We know that MH370 had 239 passengers and crew, so at the same "cost" that would be 239 x 1.8 = US$430.2 million. So the total value of the MH370 loss is at least US$691.7 million. Looked at this way, the $100 million spent on the search so far doesn't seem that much to bring closure to the families and to solve the mystery for legal, technical, and future flight safety reasons. Suppose you lost something very valuable and sentimental, even if you knew it was destroyed, is it unreasonable to spend 15% of its value ($100M/$691.7M = 15%) to find out what happened to it? (Personally, I do think it's worth spending more to keep the search going.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_777 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_777 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11th_Victim_Compensation_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11th_Victim_Compensa...
- amatix 11y ago
  Though AFAIK Australian and Malaysian taxpayers are picking up the search cost? Whereas Malaysia Airline's insurers are picking up the cost of the plane & family/crew compensation...
  - ricksplat 11y ago
    I don't know what the story is in Malaysia, but where I live any huge payouts by insurance companies ultimately get borne by the consumer (almost equivalent to taxpayer) in the form of increased premiums and levies. It's not tax for sure, but it is effectively an additional set of charges that many people have to pay.
    - woah 11y ago
      Well that is the purpose of insurance.
      - ricksplat 11y ago
        I didn't say it was unfair - I was saying that everybody ends up paying for it in the end, even if it's not through direct taxation.
        mikeash 11y ago
        In a case like this, it's not everybody, but airline customers, and in rough proportion to how much they fly. Which is a decent way to distribute the costs.
        ricksplat 11y ago
        > it's not everybody, but airline customers I'm afraid that's just not true. That is certainly the principal, but in reality (in Europe at least) the costs are distributed across the entire consumer-base. The costs are "socialised".

rubberstamp 11y ago

maybe we should start adding some traceable marker with paint or something so that planes won't disappear like this

kbart 11y ago
There are better and more reliable technical means. It's simply mindblowing how in XXI century a plane can be lost with all these radars, satellites and transceivers around. There are many technical solutions using already existing technologies for tracking planes, it looks more like organizational and political problem.
- elthran 11y ago
  Yeah - And that mystery is why its so important to find this plane in particular - all we really have now is wild mass guessing
- ivanmilles 11y ago
  On the contrary. If you look at the projected search area, it's a huge swath of deep ocean. A plane is very small. Once it breaks up against the waves it's really, really small. The debris sinks into silt at the bottom of a deep ocean. Currents spread them out. Even if we knew where it went down, finding it is a difficult problem. On top of that, we don't have radar tracking over the oceans. Transcievers don't communicate all the time while in flight. There are long periods of time where you are outside any national radar system. Compounded, it's entirely reasonable to lose a plane. There are 15-20 planes that have never been found since the 1980s.
  - gsnedders 11y ago
    AF447 has to be the typical example of this: we had a good idea of where it crashed, having found debris within 48 hours of the crash, and yet it took nearly two years to find the wreckage.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    In other words, 'kbart is right. We could track planes over the water, but for some reasons we don't bother. Not the future we've been promised. Maybe MH370 will make us start caring though.

randomsearch 11y ago

> The hunt for MH370 no longer makes headlines Irony.

pc86 11y ago
What is ironic about that?
- borplk 11y ago
  He means the search just did make headline

zeristor 11y ago

They've scanned 80,000 km, and found two ship wrecks. Just with a bit of reality testing I would have thought they would have found quite a few more. Over the last few hundred years a lot of ships must have passed through that area, and with the rough seas a fair proportion of them have sunk. How many may they have missed?

fdej 11y ago
The scanned area is still just 1/1000 of the Indian Ocean, and very far from the coast. Finding two ships doesn't sound so bad to me.
WatchDog 11y ago
Its a quite remote area of the ocean away from major shipping routes.

Shivetya 11y ago

So how many ship wrecks are assumed to be in the areas they are searching? Finding two doesn't sound like many but granted shipping lanes have changed through history

wycx 11y ago

Does anyone know if datasets generated by the search e.g. bathymetry are being made public?

TranquilMarmot 11y ago
Yes, here's a nice article about the bathymetry: http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/2014/mh370-bathymetric-survey-fact-sheet.aspx http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/2014/mh370-bathymetric-s... And a link to the data itself: http://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/marine/bathymetry http://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/marine/bathymetry