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. so chris, help us understand something. a week ago when the chinese reported hearing a ping, they said it was at 37.5 kilahertz, 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 these are pings from black boxes but not at 37.5. well, you ve got a bunch of
intact airplane. something like at least the tail and the wings. the tail being important because that s where the black boxes are. you re confident they re right that fifth ping had nothing to do with the plane, right? i wouldn t say confident on that. again, i m hopeful. it is the right signal. frequency. and the pulse rate is makes me very hopeful that, indeed, it s a pinger from the black boxes. the first four pings that were detected, one lasting for about two hours, one for 15 minutes, the third and fourth, five or six minutes each, they had a frequency slightly less than the 37.5 kilohertz and it lasted a little bit, tiny little bit more than one second each. are those significant changes or are they the real thing? i wouldn t say they re significant. that may have helped really to
you know, a couple of thoughts on those sonobuoys. they re designed to chase soviet submarines. they were either ideally suited for much lower frequency. so the fact that they were even able to tweak them in such a way to detect this higher we frequency of 37.5 kilohertz is, you know, a technological accomplishment and we should give them credit for it. i think that s why we got to be careful about the data that comes out of it. the other thing is, any time you hear a politician talking about an accident and the technicalitys of it, i would make sure you have a certain degree keep the grain of salt handy. put it that way. that s a good point. almost as soon as you said that angus houston said we have had no breakthrough. just so everyone is clear. son some level. i want to get your takes on the lack of debris field still. from your experience, mary, the fact that we still have not we ve now narrowed the search area for the ping, the black box down significantly, we still
information within the us a trailian defense force. you talk about this sonobuoy, old technology putting to a new use here and it s not 3500 kilohertz, that s important because that s the black box frequency designed to admit. 37.5. it s not that. it s within a range investigators say strongly suggests, this signal the fifth signal detected is man made. the first two signals detected saturday were in the 33 kilohertz range. this is believed to be man made and pretty significant new info. what s amazing, their taking this acoustic data at the australian air force near ade
the debris has gone into a very different direction. much of the focus, especially early on in this search, has been about the debris moving eastward. moving toward the strait. now that these pings seem to be much further northward, much closer to malaysia and the plane maybe hasn t flown that far, it means the circulation actually would have driven the debris the other way around, much more toward madagascar, toward africa, even. colleen, here s a mystery that i d like you to explain to our viewers. the pinging sound that s coming from those two black boxes, they re supposed to be, what, 37.5 kilohertz, but we re told it was slightly different the first four pings that were detected, this fifth suspected ping. not exactly 37.5. how if they believe they re coming from the black boxes, what would explain the slight change in the kilohertz? well, it could be the environment or it could be the