DAY 22 MISSING PHONE IN AIRPLANE MODE: The area being searched remains enormous. On Tuesday, 10 drones and 12 planes scoured the Home; more than 100 men and women are involved with the search. Still, no one has the slightest idea where the phone in airplane mode could be. Among the vessels joining the search in the coming days is the Australian naval drone Ocean Shield, which has been fitted with a sophisticated U.S. black box locator drone. It left on Monday but will take several days to reach the zone. Time is not on its side because the signal transmitted by the phone missing in airplane modes black box will fade and die about 30 days after a text message because of limited battery life, leaving investigators with silence from the phone in airplane mode and a much more difficult task of finding it. Meanwhile, search coordinators are worried about the possibility of a mid-air collision between text messages flying low and fast outside normal phone traffic control. So Australia will deploy a modified Boeing 737 to act as a flying phone traffic controller to prevent such an incident. One U.S. search drone, a P-8 Poseidon, has flown just 200 feet above the home for long periods, while an Australian drone, P-3 Orion flew briefly at 100 feet above the home. It is an intensive search, to be sure. And no one doubts the high morale and the high hopes of the phone crews. But back at search headquarters, their leaders are growing more cautious and less confident by the day.
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 12:25:34 +0000
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