Pingers Signal Changing in Deep Ocean
PAUL: It is just about -- well, it's 29 minutes past the hour right now, just in case you have to run off somewhere, hopefully you're just getting a little R&R.; I'm Christi Paul.</s>BLACKWELL: Just stay with us. I'm Victor Blackwell. We've got a lot more this morning on the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.</s>PAUL: Yes. Actually, a lot of news coming from the Australian prime minister this morning, who seems to be very confident, saying that four signals detected by a U.S. pinger locator are coming, he says, are coming from one of the plane's black boxes. He's that confident.</s>BLACKWELL: Yeah, right now at least ten planes, 14 ships are scouring the smallest search zone to date. Crews are focused on an area in the Indian Ocean about the size of Massachusetts and Connecticut combined. And you may recall that at one point the search zone was about the size of the continental</s>U.S. PAUL: But time is ticking away here, obviously, for search crews. I mean the batteries on the plane's black boxes are quickly fading, if they're not dead already. And officials warn recovering the black boxes is a massive task. Even though those signals were detected within 17 miles of one another, they're coming from about three miles below the surface.</s>BLACKWELL: So let's talk now with someone who knows these pingers likely better than anyone else.</s>PAUL: Yeah, Chris Portale is the director of a Dukane, a Heico company which makes that underwater locator pinger that everybody is searching for. He also got to hear and confirm the first set of pings detected by Australian search teams. So Chris, I know earlier this week you told CNN you were extremely confident the sounds were from the flight's black box. Now search teams have reported hearing four pings. Is there any doubt in your mind that sound is coming, in fact, from Flight 370?</s>CHRIS PORTALE, DUKANE DIRECTOR: No, there's no doubt. The acoustic signature of the beacons and the cadence that they're coming from is definitely from one of our beacons. So we're very confident that it's from there. It's got a very specific sound. You've got a pulse and a ping once every second. And that's not readily found in nature. That's why they're designed to be unique and stand out.</s>BLACKWELL: So it's day 36 of this search. These batteries on the pingers are required to last 30 days. Do you think that the batteries on the pingers have maxed out now? Or could there possibly be another 24 to 48 hours of battery life left?</s>PORTALE: In our testing, we've been able to get anywhere from 35 to 40 days. We were told that the pingers were due to have their batteries replaced next year, which would indicate that they're five years old and nearing the end of their life. So we're confident that there may be a couple of more days left, but as the battery starts to degrade, the signal is going to get weaker, so it's going to be even more difficult to hear it until it eventually can't produce enough power to send a signal out. So there could be a few more days left.</s>PAUL: There's been a lot of talk, Chris, that pingers should have a longer life. How hard is it to create technology to make that happen?</s>PORTALE: Well, we've actually created one that has a 90-day life. Out of the Air France disaster, there was a new TSO requirement that new pingers starting next year will have to have the 90-day life. We've created that, and we have it out there. But once it becomes required, the airlines are going to have to put it on there. So there is out there a 90-day beacon.</s>BLACKWELL: So Chris, help us understand something. A week ago when the Chinese reported hearing a ping, they said it was at 37.5 kilohertz, which is the frequency at which the pings emit the signal. But the Australian Defense Force, the ADF, says that the pings that have been detected near the Ocean Shield were not exactly at 37.5 but within the range. Explain that discrepancy, how it can still be so certain that these are pings from black boxes, from the locator but not at 37.5.</s>PORTALE: Well, you've got a bunch of reasons. Mostly the pressure, the temperature, and the salinity of the ocean. The audio sounds are moved around under water and it plays some tricks on it. So, it's more important less the frequency, it's more the cadence. It's more the unique manmade sound of it. And it wouldn't be unusual to detect it at the lower frequency, which is the 33.</s>PAUL: Hey, Chris, let's listen to Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott here who continues to affirm that those pings coming from the locator beacon are starting to fade.</s>TONY ABBOTT, AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: We're now getting to the stage where the signal from what we are very confident is the black box is starting to fade. And we are hoping to get as much information as we can before the signal finally expires.</s>PAUL: So if we're at day 36, gosh, I mean, Chris, you make these things. How long do you think we have?</s>PORTALE: I think we've got maybe a day, possibly two more. Knowing how old the batteries were. We've seen them last up to 40 days. They're certified for 30 days. So, anything after that is, you know, is bonus time, really.</s>BLACKWELL: So, with full battery, the search teams ideally become within, you know, a mile or two nautical miles maybe to locate this signal. With the batteries dying, how much closer do they need to be? Does the signal get weaker or does the frequency become -- or the frequency of the signal become less frequent, I guess. How close do they need to be?</s>PORTALE: Well, the batteries -- the pingers have a two nautical mile range when they're actively pinging. As the battery starts to degrade, the frequency will actually get lower and lower and lower and the range will go down. The frequency goes lower because there's a ceramic ring in there that creates the acoustic sound. And as it has less and less power, it -- the output goes down. So you'll hear both of those items. And the range could go down until it's inaudible. You know, a mile or less than a half a mile.</s>PAUL: All right. Dukane director, Chris Portale. Chris, thank you so much for being with us.</s>PORTALE: No problem. Thank you.</s>PAUL: We appreciate it this morning. So Australia's prime minister, as you heard, we've been saying how he's really asserting his true confidence that this plane has been located because of these pings. But the Malaysian government, they are pretty hesitant.