MH370 mystery: Last June, scientists reported the detection of a low frequency noise just prior the MH370 vanished.
Speculations said it could have been the sound of the crash. But actually the rumbling noises were the result of geological activity.
Hopes have faded that hydroacoustic signals picked up on the floor of the Indian Ocean might help to locate the Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 airliner which disappeared in March 2014. Data from an additional sensor suggest that the signal likely resulted from geological activity and not the sound of an aeroplane crashing into the ocean’s surface.
In June, Australian scientists had reported that sensitive microphones off the Australian coast had detected a distinctive signal at 01:30 coordinated universal time (UTC) on 8 March, around the time satellites lost contact with the Boeing 777 airliner.
On 3 September the researchers recovered data from another IMOS station at Scott Reef, off northwestern Australia. It contains a signal at 01:32:49 UTC that the researchers believe could correspond to the sound event they had detected earlier. Combining the data gave a fix on the location of the sound as the geologically-active Carlsberg Ridge, midway between the Horn of Africa and India.
The sound signal also had a low amplitude tail, and taken together these two findings suggest that the event was geological, for example caused by an earthquake, underwater landslide, or volcanic eruption. Too bad!
