Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 Signal Could Be A False Lead

The illusive flight MH270 had been tracked 15,000 ft deep, but now rumors are saying that the signal could be a false lead. The flight signal has taken weeks to pinpoint. Officials say they are confident that the signal they’ve found comes from the plane’s black box, but an investigator has said it could be old oceanography equipment.

The signal that has been “pinged” is 37.5 kilohertz, it’s confirmed to be man made and strong enough to have only a few possible sources. However, at 15,000 ft it’s tricky to reach. If it is the Malaysian flight’s black box signal then recovery crews face the pressure of reaching it before it’s battery dies and the signal is lost. If it’s not, the investigation could be hitting a silent(er) trail very soon. Already the length of the search for Flight 370 has taken longer than anyone expected. At this point there is little to no hope of finding survivors.

Greg Feith, a former investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board and an NBC News analyst, said “There’s not much that has that pinger technology that sits on 37.5 kilohertz, so it’s very few items… If it isn’t the airplane, then, again, you know, it’s anybody’s guess.”

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, on the other hand, said that his government has followed the signal to the position of the jet’s black box, within miles. The suggestion of it being a false lead began on Friday when the man leading the search reported being less optimistic that the signal was coming from the black box. The latest acoustic was captured by a listening device buoy and the signal relayed to an Australian ship on Thursday. The flight, lost over the sea, gave no distress signal before vanishing. There were two suspicious passengers onboard with fake passports, but the clues have dried up from there. Until the black box is recovered, search crews and families of passengers will continue to be left with only speculations about what happened.

Experts have been active in the search over the past weeks, and more are likely to be brought in to discover what is sending the 37.5 kilohertz signal. Hopes are that the original belief, that the flight has been found, turns out to be the case. If not… well, like Greg Feith said, “- it’ll be interesting to find out what it is”.