[Peetwo]

New data & Chester stonewalls again on MH370 -

Via Oz Aviation...

Fresh data offers no new information to resume search for MH370: Minister
July 19, 2017 by australianaviation.com.au

A screenshot of the Geoscience Australia MH370 data on its website. (Geoscience Australia)

Federal Minister for Infrastructure and Transport Darren Chester says the publication of high resolution maps of the Indian Ocean has uncovered no new information to warrant a resumption of the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

Geoscience Australia said on Wednesday it had released the sea floor mapping data covering 278,000 square kilometres of the Indian Ocean off the Western Australia coast.

Known as bathymetry data, the material being made available to the public features sea floor topography maps that show with a high resolution 6km wide and 15km long ridges that rise 1,500m above the sea floor, as well as fault valleys 1,200 metres deep and 5km wide.

The maps were used in the unsuccessful search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER 9M-MRO that disappeared on March 8 2014 enroute from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing carrying 239 passengers and crew.

Australia, China and Malaysia agreed to suspend the search for the aircraft in January after scouring 120,000 square kilometres of the Indian Ocean.

The three countries said at the time they would be open to resuming the search effort if there was credible new evidence which led to the identification of a specific location of the aircraft.

However, Chester said the data released on Wednesday did not meet that requirement.

“No new information has been discovered to determine the specific location of the aircraft and the underwater search remains suspended,” Chester said in a statement.

“Our thoughts and sympathies continue to be with the families and friends of those who have lost their lives.

“We remain hopeful that new information will come to light and that at some point in the future the aircraft will be located.”

Some 20 items of debris believed to have come from the missing 777-200ER have been found along the east and south coast of Africa, the east coast of Madagascar and the Islands of Mauritius, Reunion and Rodrigues in the Indian Ocean, including a wing flaperon that underwent Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) analysis in Canberra.

Geoscience Australia published a video of the overview of the MH370 search area on its
YouTube channel:

Geoscience Australia noted only 10 to 15 per cent of the world’s oceans have been mapped using the sonar technology that was used in the search for MH370, with the maps produced having a resolution about 15 times higher than those previously available. It was one of the largest marine surveys ever conducted.

While the data was collected to assist in locating the Malaysia Airlines 777-200ER, Geoscience Australia environmental division chief Stuart Minchin said it also had valuable scientific uses.

“This data is unique both because of the remote location of the search area, and because of the sheer scale of the area surveyed,” Dr Minchin said in a statement on the Geoscience Australia website.

“This data will contribute to a greater understanding of the geology of the deep ocean and the complex processes that occur there; it will be important for a range of future scientific research, including oceanographic and habitat modelling. While tragically the aircraft has not yet been found, I am proud we could bring the organisation’s expertise to bear on such important work.”

Geoscience Australia said more data was being prepared for public release some time in mid-2018.

A Geoscience Australia video published in May explained the mapping of the ocean floor:

& the M&M prepared statement for 6D:

Statement
Media Release
DC216/2017
19 July 2017


Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Darren Chester today welcomed the release of Geoscience Australia's sea floor data collected in the search for Malaysian Airlines flight MH370.

Mr Chester said the data covered 710,000 square kilometres of the southern Indian Ocean uncovering volcanoes, ridges and sea mounts, and provided a better understanding of the sea floor processes.

“The search for MH370 has involved state of the art equipment and the Australian Government, with the support of Malaysia and the People's Republic of China, has always been committed to releasing this data to the public,” Mr Chester said.

“No new information has been discovered to determine the specific location of the aircraft and the underwater search remains suspended.

“Our thoughts and sympathies continue to be with the families and friends of those who have lost their lives.

“We remain hopeful that new information will come to light and that at some point in the future the aircraft will be located.”

& today via 'that man' in the Oz:

Search for MH370 unveils a lost world deep beneath the ocean

An image of ‘faulted volcanoes’ produced from the MH370 search area. Picture: Geoscience Australia
An image of the ‘Diamantina Trench’.

• Ean Higgins
  
• The Australian
  
• 12:00AM July 21, 2017
  

They look like visions from the more sci-fi landscapes of Game of Thrones — towering, sharp mountains and ridges, dramatic blue-tinged canyon valleys winding into the distance, strings of volcanoes bursting out of the ground.

What was not found in the extra­ordinary underwater landscape was what the Australian Transport Safety Bureau was looking for: the remains of ­Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 and the 239 souls on board.

But in the process of unsuccessfully hunting for MH370, the ATSB commissioned surveys of the sea bed that reveal stunning, never before seen images of some of deepest parts of the world’s oceans ever mapped in such ­detail.

The released data has been put up on the website of Geoscience Australia.

The images also have again highlighted just how challenging the hunt for the Boeing 777 was in the 120,000sq km search area ­selected by the ATSB in the southern Indian Ocean.

The searchers had to navigate their sonar imaging “tow fish” around massive underwater ­features that could hide aircraft debris at depths of up to 6km.

Some of the underwater canyons were scanned by an autonomous, torpedo-like machine that was pre-programmed to hunt for MH370 on its own and return to the surface after completing its mission.

Despite extensive mapping of the sea floor before actually beginning search operations, one of the vessels involved, the Fugro Discovery, early last year ran its tow fish into what was described as “a mud volcano which rises 2200m from the sea floor”.

The vessel lost the tow fish, although the sonar imaging device was later recovered.

MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014 on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with 239 people on board. It deviated from its planned route 40 minutes into the flight, with its radar transponder turned off and radio communications cut.

Primary radar and automatic satellite tracking signals indicate the aircraft doubled back over Malaysia before turning on a long track south.

Marine scientists and geologists have been salivating ahead of the release of the mapping data.

Chief of Geoscience Australia’s environmental geoscience division, Stuart Minchin, said only 10-15 per cent of the world’s oceans had been surveyed with the kind of technology used in the search for MH370, making this remote part of the Indian Ocean “among the most thoroughly mapped regions of the deep ocean on the planet”.

Dr Minchin pointed to images revealing ridges 6km wide and 15km long that rise 1500m above the sea floor, and fault valleys 1200m deep and 5km wide.

“This data will contribute to a greater understanding of the ­geology of the deep ocean and the complex processes that occur there,” he said.

At the request of Malaysia the ATSB planned and directed the $200 million search for MH370, but critics in the professional aviation and air crash investigation community claim it was flawed in assuming the aircraft crashed in an unpiloted dive rather than being flown to the end and outside the search area by a rogue pilot.

Families of the victims in Australia and overseas have expressed anger at the refusal of ATSB chief commissioner Greg Hood to agree to a freedom of information request from The Australian to release assessments of the satellite data from international experts the bureau claims back up its “death dive” theory.

The ATSB is keen to renew the search in an area immediately to the north of that surveyed, but the Malaysian government has insisted it will not be resumed without new credible information indicating the precise location of the aircraft.

MTF...P2