Malaysia Airlines MH370: Have Underwater Surveillance Units provided Leads on Missing Plane?

Underwater Surveillance has been one of the major technological breakthroughs of the last decade. Various nuances of underwater surveillance such as submarines, deep sea microphones, underwater listening posts, underwater military bases have led to an increase in research in the layer beneath the water surface.

Now, various underwater device microphones are set to become the object of people's attention throughout the world. With reports emerging about undersea microphones having detected signals after the disappearance of MH370 Malaysian Airliner, speculation about the airliner having crashed into the Indian Ocean gains momentum.

A team of researchers in Australia have reported a sound picked up by underwater surveillance devices in the Indian Ocean off Australia's West Coast.

The Australian researchers analysed certain low-frequency noises that were picked up by various underwater surveillance units. Some surveillance devices have been set up by the United Nations to keep tabs on nuclear tests, other underwater surveillance units have been installed by Australian researchers.

However, researchers also state that the 'acute sound' signal picked up by surveillance units could have been an earthquake. The Australian researchers headed by Dr Alec Duncan of Curtin University says that the low-frequency noises picked up by underwater devices have very little probability of being the aircraft crashing.

Researchers have been on their toes ever since the Malaysian Airliner MH370 mysteriously disappeared. Dr Duncan, senior research scholar at Curtin University said that various underwater devices detected high intensity signals on 8 March, the day of the passenger aircraft's disappearance.

"Soon after the aircraft disappeared scientists at CTBTO (United Nations' Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organisation) analysed data from their underwater listening stations south-west of Cape Leeuwin and in the northern Indian Ocean", Dr Alec Duncan told The Guardian.

Dr Duncan states that numerous other deployed underwater units could have detected signals/sounds related to the MH370.

However, there is no concrete evidence about the Malaysian airliner MH370 having crashed into the Indian Ocean.

With recent advancements in underwater technology, a possibility of an early recovery of MH370 (if it has crashed into the seas) cannot be ruled out.

Similar underwater searches were conducted as part of the Air France Flight 447 search operations. The plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009. The flight's data recorder and cockpit recorder were recovered in 2011.