some headlines coming out of that. as you mentioned there, they had those four pings that they were able to confirm. that helped them narrow down the search using that u.s. navy towed ping locator. well, they haven t had any pings since tuesday of last week, and it seems they just decided that they re not going to get any more. those batteries have gone down. so, they move on to this new phase, and they re going to put the submersible, the bluefin, down into the water this hour. we were told it would go in at the top of the hour, so it s probably happening as we speak. and that starts this new phase. it s going to go down, we re talking 450,000 meters down, over 14,000 feet down below the surface, and it will go at walking pace, mapping the surface, the ground of the ocean, the ocean floor, using side sonar. it s a real 3d image of what s down there. they re hoping, of course, to find any sign of the malaysian jet down there. it s going to take them perhaps weeks or even a couple of mo
heading up this search. the main one is that they ve decided they re not going to hear any more pings from this flight data recorders. and they re going to have to deal with the search area they ve narrowed down to now. they were hoping against hope they would get more pings which would help them narrow it down even further. the area they re dealing with is about 1,300 square kilometers. later today they are going on pull up that ping locator and lower the bluefin submersible. it is a 24-hour operation to do one sweep of about 40 square kilometers. two hours down, 16 hours going along at a walking pace, mapping the bottom using the side scan sonar and taking 3d photographs of the ocean floor. two hours back up, four hours to download all the information and replace the batteries. you mentioned that oil slick. angus houston, a man not given to hyperbole, urged caution. it was in the general search area but it has to be analyzed.
exhausted every opportunity to locate a ping through a ping locator. that s important. in angus houston s mind he s got to be 100% confident that he s done everything to locate the pirng before he goes on to the next phase. dadevid gallo, what say you? quitting is not an option. it s the family and loved ones of passengers. it s the flying public. it s the aeronautical industry. so quitting is not an option. and again, we re not intimidated by the depth, we re not intimidate bid the terrains. it s a matter of having the right team. it s a matter of having the right technologies, the right operational plan. and then we ve got to let them do what i do best and in this case we ve got a good team out there, they re great. they need to start making a systematic map of the seafloor and little by little paint that area in until you find the bits of that aircraft or the aircraft in one piece if it s there. david, you mentioned just in the previous show that you said you re not in this
right now search planes are in the air on this the 37th day since flight 370 went missing up to 11 military aircraft, 1 civil aircraft, 14 ships involved in sunday s search. we keep hearing words like optimism and confidence related to the hunt for flight 370. but pings that are thought to be from the plane s black box haven t been detected since tuesday, leading to fears that the batteries in the data recorder are becoming too weak to transmit. relatives of missing passengers pet today with malaysian officials. one mother says she feels like the malaysian government has forgotten about all things connected to flight 370. right now the u.s. navy s towed ping locator is scouring a narrow section of the indian ocean. over the past week, four
in the underwater drone to join the towed ping locator? up. a short word that s a tall order. up your game. up the ante. and if you stumble, you get back up. up isn t easy, and we ought to know. we re in the business of up. everyday delta flies a quarter of million people while investing billions improving everything from booking to baggage claim. we re raising the bar on flying and tomorrow we will up it yet again.