MH370: Black Box Batteries May be Dead and Who Should Have Custody of the Malaysia Airlines' Black Box
After the four signals last week, things have slowed down in the hunt for the missing MH370 Malaysia Airlines flight. It appears that the black box batteries may have died, reports CBC News. There are no more signals coming from the ocean floor, but the search teams have not given up their search for any pings that could be coming out from the debris.
According to the Web site, the teams are searching tirelessly for any clues in the gigantic deep ocean. Since April 8, the crews have not received any new pings and the MH370 black box batteries may be dead by now. The batteries only last a month.
When it is confirmed that the batteries are dead and no more signals will be received, a robot-powered sub will be sent in the ocean. After the batteries are dead, it is extremely difficult to extract the black boxes as the water is quite deep (4500 meters).
Aviation expert Geoffrey said that they are into the 37th day of the tragedy.
"The battery life on the beacons is supposed to last 30 days. We're hoping it might last 40 days. However, it's been four or five days since the last strong pings. What they're hoping for is to get one more, maybe two more pings so they can do a triangulation of the sounds and try and narrow the [search] area," said Geoffrey.
The officials are looking for Malaysia Airlines MH370 flight in a 1,300-square-kilometer area which is close to the size of Los Angeles.
Malaysia Airlines MH370 Black Box Custody
According to The Star Online, Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail, Attorney General is having dialogues with the International Civil Aviation Organisation on who should keep the black box of the ill-fated Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, acting transport minister said on Sunday that the Attorney General was in the UK. He is discussing the matters with ICAO.
"We are getting closer to that issue. The A-G is in the UK discussing it. The ICAO and experts involved are relying on international law and domestic law on who should actually have custody of the black box, once we do find it," said Datuk in a press conference.
MH370 was a Boeing 777-200ER registered in Malaysia and according to ICAO, the country of origin of the jet should investigate and keep the wreckage. However, in this case Malaysia asked Australia to do the search in the southern Indian Ocean.
Datuk mentioned that the focus is to locate the jet first which has been untraceable for 37 days.
He also said that the police are still looking into the four possibilities - hijacking, terrorism, personal and psychological issues - on the disappearance of MH370.