eventually you would see things washing up. and i think the currents are generally moving in that area. but it s still going to take some time. so if you have a lot of time, you might start doing some beach combing. but we re talking about that. think about it. when you said close to australia, how many what is it, like 1200 miles, 1300 miles or so off the coast of australia? about 1100, 1200 miles at the moment. so that would take a while to wash up. here is something from tamara says okay, so if we found more than one potential ping, how long will it take, roll the prompter up, please. how long will it take to get a side sonar in the water? do we know? i defer to paul. mary schiavo? please answer that question. well, i don t know how long it s going to take to get in the water because presumably, it s on the echo. but i do know how long it s going take to get down because it takes an hour for every
was somebody on board trying to avoid radar? no one knows. i want to bring in our correspondent. the hub of the search operation and jim clancy is in kuala lumpur. the navy ship hms echo is on the scene. tell us what happened. for the past several hours, according to the british ministry of defense, it has been on the scene and started its work trying to verify what the chinese say they detected with pretty ordinary, some pings on two separate locations, two hours apart and 12 hours apart as well which might not have anything to do with the missing malaysian airliner but enough for a significant redeployment by the australian led search teams here. that involves the deployment of australian aircraft in the skies and of course, this deployment of hms echo which is one of the world s most sophisticated mapping ships.
chinese ship. a specially equipped british ship has now arrived at the spot where the two pulse signals were picked up. and on board the hms echo, high-tech detect has occurred. northeast of there, the australian ship ocean shield is continuing its investigations, trying to figure out the source of a curious, quote, acoustic event. and today another question is emerging. did the plane try to avoid indonesian airspace? a senior malaysian government source has come out with an explosive allegation that flight 370 apparently steered a suspicious course to avoid indonesian radar. for the very latest on the search, i want to go to perth where the news conference is about to take place. and our senior international correspondent matthew chance is there. matthew, any idea what we re going to hear in this press briefing? yeah, well, it s going to be an update on the various missions that are under way, the search episodes that are under way out in the indian ocean
a british navy ship called hms echo is now in the area where the chinese ship detected two audio signals. the echo is equipped with a state-of-the-art sonar that can map the ocean floor. as you know, two pinger detectors picked up sound within 350 nautical miles of ooch other. the hmo heck co-in the general vicinity of where the chinese patrol ship detected the pinging sounds on friday and saturday. the goal is to try to find that sound again and either confirm or rule out that it is from the black boxes belonging to flight 370. now, keep in mind this area is different from where the australian ship, the ocean shield detected pinging sounds on two separate occasions. the first one for two hours, the
how many it s going to take 11 hours just to get the thing down to where it can scan the ocean floor. so once it gets there and they get it in the water, it s going take a day to get it down at the floor. and it s all depends on which of the assets. which of the assets has got it. so we know echo is now on-site. right. and can deploy that which it s got. but if they have to wait for ocean shield, ocean shield is still doing its own business 300 miles away. so if they declare that this is, you know, a valid thing and they want to get something down into the water, it will all depend on whether or not echo has it on board. right. and again, i want to tell our viewers rewith waiting for a news briefing at the top of the hour, just about 20 minutes or so. we re expecting angus houston, the man who is heading the search for the missing flight 370 said a short time ago, about 10:00 eastern time that he is going to hold a press briefing at 12:00 eastern time here in