they re very covert by nature. hms tireless will be in the area. i think the key to all this, ashleigh, the passive sonar. the passive sonar is the piece of technology that will detect and listen for that ping. it s not active. it s not like this. it doesn t send out energy and look at the energy coming back. it just listens. there s a number of assets he can use. i d be putting the p-8s out there. po siden aircraft. the p-3s. i d be dropping the passive sonar boys into the water. the the sonar boys they hold 100 phones as well. they sit in the water. and listen? the question i would have for tim, is there a scenario where you can have the sonar boys floating on the surface which wouldn t detect? yet the auv would? of course. sound is very very different in the water. it has layers that it can t penetrate. looking at what the chinese heard for one and a half
they are quicker than the ships. the p-8 poseidon can travel at 500 knots and the p-3s can travel three to four miles a minute. and a jet aircraft from china, maritime surveillance. it would be sensible to deploy assets into this area first to get a feel. as we spoke about today you don t get smoke without fire. it would be unusual to find black boxes without a sign of a debris field. if you then had anything that looked suspicious or objects that we saw. 90 objects were seen today. but if there is anything that could corroborate the ships going into the area, the planes could do that. do you think that some of the search assets should move that way? because the batteries are dying. well, i mean, the most important asset would be a boat
the australians thought they had a hit and it was a random event. the fact the chinese are calling it pulse captures my attention. i just wish we had more information and come from where else than the chinese. they have not been all that accurate. it appears to come from a singular reporter onboard one of the ships. not from an authorized or official source. nevertheless, let s move forward. this is actually from you, the u.s. planes would drop a sonabuoy? the quickest thing is to get out there and cover that area as quickly as we can. ships move too slowly. you get the p-3s out there. drop sona buoy. it is a trans miss ee eer microphone. when it hits the water it lowers a microphone on a cable down
the analysts have been refining this information for four weeks. we re now down to two converging 240 kilometer tracks. that is extremely refined, considering the size of the area. 130,000 square miles we have been looking at previously. so that is good news. what i would say, though, i still don t think that the revelation moment is going to come from the ping locater. i think it s going to be from the p- s, the p-3s. still an aviation story. at the moment, they re the assets that can cover the most area. now, the question i would ask is, is that if we do have those two converging tracks why haven t the aircraft been on top of the location, being able to see something. and because for me, you don t get one without the other. you don t get the black boxes without some sort of indication of debris. so all i can say to that, why has it taken 28 days to crunch numbers and data. we re going to go into that. stand by if you will, richard quest. last quick comment? i was going to say, do
that to be effective, too. so it s pretty tough going right now. miles, we also heard commander marks tell us a short time ago that the u.s. might provide more assistance if t malaysians ask for it. right now the malaysians haven t asked for it? i thought they did ask for it at one time. maybe they need to be clearer. just say look, send us an aircraft carrier, more p 8s, p 3s. i thought his answer was a bit of a sidestep saying we don t want planes to bonk into each other. that can be worked out. a lot of people say send an aircraft carrier. why aren t there 50 planes and not 20 planes? some sort of flat top vehicle, ship. maybe need the george washington in japan for strategic reasons. but there s plenty of assets in the u.s. navy that could come into play. once you put an aircraft carrier of some kind in the region, you don t have the range issues. you have people right on target. that s what you want to go after. david soucie, the search area