Towed #MH370 Search Sonar Vehicle lost

[vooke]

A deep-sea exploration vehicle searching for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has been lost on the ocean floor after colliding with a submerged volcano.

The agency running the search said the collision with the 2,200-metre mud volcano on Sunday broke the cable attaching the Fugro Discovery search vessel to the sonar vehicle, known as a towfish, leaving the towfish and 4,500m of cable on the bed of the Indian Ocean.

Read more
http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...le-searching-mh370-sinks-volcano-indian-ocean

I'm wondering how this towfish is expected to locate a plane or its wreckage or parts when it can't 'see' a 2KM volcano on its path

 

[Trailblazer]

I'm wondering how this towfish is expected to locate a plane or its wreckage or parts when it can't 'see' a 2KM volcano on its path

I assume it wasn't looking forwards. It's the equivalent of walking into a lamp post while looking at the ground for a dropped ring.

 

[vooke]

I assume it wasn't looking forwards. It's the equivalent of walking into a lamp post while looking at the ground for a dropped ring.

Now that's super funny analogy.
I agree to some extent but still, the vehicle should not be bumping into things down there without warning the crew, or maybe they slept on the job

 

[Gridlock]

Maybe the synthetic aperture radar has sidebeam characteristics due to Hifflessen-Scholtz scattering that means anhydrous sedimentary deposits are invisible to the Shatner's Bassoon?

Which is a different way of saying, I'm sure they know what they're doing (and we don't).

 

[Efftup]

It could also have been a calibration issue. I have it it on good authority that at one point in the trials of the Royal Navy's Merlin helicopter, it could see a foot of periscope sticking out the water tens of miles away while simultaneously being unable to see the Large cargo ship it had just taken off from.

 

[vooke]

The Fugro Discovery was returning to Fremantle, Western Australia, where a replacement cable could be installed, while crew members readied a spare towfish for use, the statement said. It was expected to reach Fremantle in five days.

The Australian Transport and Safety Bureau, the national transport safety investigator, said in a statement that it would take about 12 days for the vessel to return to the previous search location. Searching the entire search area was still expected to take until mid-2016, it said.

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/25/asia/mh370-search-sonar-vehicle-lost/index.html

Now it makes sense; the towfish was being hauled back to Freemantle and as such was not actively searching the ocean floor. But still, it could have been negligence