final mission on wednesday, and then australia will seek bids from private contractors for gear like this, able to scan much larger areas and transmit data in real time, making those deals, deciding who will pay and getting more assets in place will likely take until august at the soonest. tomorrow, however, malaysia is set to release the satellite data that provided the only real evidence of flight 370 s whereabouts once it fell off the malaysia military radar. joining me is former aviation accident investigator david soucie. david, we ve been talking a lot about this data. what will it consist of? well, it s going to be interesting to see, because it s been reviewed over the last few days and kind of dissected again by the malaysian government and by the aaib. it will be interesting to see what they put out. it s intended to put out the raw
welcome back. time for our experts to answer your questions. first one will go to michael kay. we have a question from mabel. mabel says what are the first steps taken in the investigation once the plane is found? i guess my answer to that, don, is which part of the plane is found first. that is critical. if it is surface debris, i think the huge bit of the investigation will be allowing closure for the families. that will be absolutely key. we have been talking about bypassing the hay stack and going if for needle. and that is the black box and fdr and cvr. there are memorandums of understanding being drawn up right now as to who would handle the processing of that data. would it be the ntsb, the aaib or the australian. i have to go to david. pete meyer says a lot of questions on the show seem to assume the black boxes are sitting on the ocean floor or
welcome back. time for our experts to answer your questions. first one will go to michael kay. we have a question from mabel. mabel says what are the first steps taken in the investigation once the plane is found? i guess my answer to that, don, is which part of the plane is found first. that is critical. if it is surface debris, i think the huge bit of the investigation will be allowing closure for the families. that will be absolutely key. we have been talking about bypassing the hay stack and going if for needle. and that is the black box and fdr and cvr. there are memorandums of understanding being drawn up right now as to who would handle the processing of that data. would it be the ntsb, the aaib or the australian.
it is what is fuelling the fire for family and other skeptics that look, you looked in the most promising area. you haven t foynund it. maybe it s not there. all right. i think it s time for a moment of reality on this, erin. and it really comes down to this. you re suggest organize it s been suggested that somehow inmarsat did a calculation, came up with with a place and everybody said let s head off down there and have a look at it. nothing could be further from the truth. my understanding is this is inmarsat did the data. the ntsb has reviewed the data. the aaib did its own independent calculations. a variety of other satellite companies have looked at this data. and they ve all concluded that, yes, this is valid and offers the best opportunity and the best hope. now, if they are misguided or if as arthur says even looking for it in that water, it s not like looking for it at the bottom of a bathtub.
looking for the black backes and so far they haven t found them. fit comes down to relying on the debris, are they up to the task if they have to piece together the wreckage? look, don, i really do believe they are. australia s aviation transportation safety bureau is one of the best in the world. they ve helped nations in the near proximity like indonesia. they ve helped them with their crash investigation. they ve helped the singaporeans as well. they ve got a very, very good track record, very methodical and certainly in the same class as the ntsb and the aaib, and the bea in france. so, yes, they are up to the task but i agree with mary, hopefully the black boxes will give us the information we need because actually recovering this a