A member of the Royal Australian Air Force looks down at the Norwegian merchant ship Hoegh St. Petersburg, which is taking take part in the search for possible debris from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 on Friday, March 21. The Malaysia Airlines jet disappeared during a March 8 flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Surveillance planes are looking for two objects spotted by satellite imagery in the remote and treacherous waters of the southern Indian Ocean more than 1,400 miles from Australia's west coast of Australia.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Two data recorders are fitted with beacons
- Battery life is about a month
- Pings generally detected up to 2 nautical miles
Somewhere in the vast Indian Ocean, a tiny aluminum cylinder may be emitting a steady ping.
The ping itself is unremarkable, says Anish Patel, president of beacon manufacturer Dukane Seacom Inc. Patel snaps his fingers to match the pinger's rate -- one snap per second. In fact, it is inaudible to human ears.
But the whole world is listening. And the ping is taking on the cadence of a slowly failing clock.
Friday marks the 14th day of the hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, and near the halfway mark in the pinger's minimum battery life. When the battery dies, possibly around April 6, the job of finding the flight data and cockpit voice recorders will get significantly harder. And so will the job of solving the mystery of Flight 370.
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