Anchor Marco Werman speaks with John Fish of American Underwater Search and Survey about the challenges of an undersea search. Investigators have descended upon a stretch of the Atlantic Ocean where floating debris was found a day after an Air France airliner went missing with 228 passengers on board.
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MARCO WERMAN: As you've heard, the Brazilian Air Force says planes searching for the missing jet have spotted debris floating in the sea. John Fish is with American Underwater Search and Survey. The company is based on Cape Cod here in Massachusetts. Mr. Fish, now that debris has been spotted, what is the next step here?
JOHN FISH: The next step will be for a ship equipped with a helicopter to steam in that direction. The debris is so far out to sea, maybe upwards of a thousand miles, that it takes ships a long time to get there, and helicopters don't have that kind of range in general. So a helicopter equipped ship will steam in that direction and dispatch the helicopter as soon as it's within range.
WERMAN: Now, you say this is really a remote location. I've heard 500 miles off the coast of West Africa, but you seem to indicate that it's much further off into the Atlantic. What are the challenges of searching this particular area?
FISH: Well, the challenges are first it's close to a geophysical structure called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge which is a mountain range and, of course, that searching acoustically with sonar systems is much more difficult in rugged terrain. And also the depth. If it's near the Mid-Atlantic Ridge then it could be in depths between 4,000 meters and 7,000 meters.
WERMAN: So you talk about sonar but I'm wondering given the kind of nature of this terrain under the ocean, is the best way to see what's going on down there still just combing the area with human eyes and getting responders there to get in diving gear and going into the water.
FISH: I suspect it's far too deep for divers, but submersibles can reach those depths but the human eyes that are scouring the surface will be looking for floating debris, and we have on a number of occasions been able to hindcast debris. That means we know where the debris was found and what time it was found and it's very often known what time or an approximate time the aircraft was lost. And if it's a number of days, we know where the debris was when it was found, and with using oceanographic algorithms we can determine where that debris was yesterday, the day before that and the day before that, all the way back to the accident time. And we've done that very successfully a number of times and been able to hindcast as opposed to forecast.
WERMAN: It seems that there are numerous assets from numerous countries involved in this rescue operation. I'd like you to explain for us how did they all come together. You've got Brazilian and French investigators because of the origin and destination of the flight. France would also have to be involved, I understand, because they manufactured the plane and then Senegal's involved because the plane was nearing Senegalese airspace. But what is the protocol for who must be involved in an international rescue like this?
FISH: It's a little different depending on countries but in general you've listed the parties that will be involved. If there's an accident in the United States of America, the NTSB welcomes investigators from all over the world because air accidents are rare and the air accident investigators don't get many chances to actually ply their trade.
WERMAN: Any chance you're going to be asked to visit the site because of your expertise and experience?
FISH: We might be. My colleagues and I have developed some expertise over a couple of decades of searching for hard to find targets, and very often aircraft in the underwater environment can be difficult to recognize as aircraft apart from geology and other targets. So I've been active in a number of air accidents over water where things like the Digital Flight Data Recorder and the CVR or Cockpit Voice Recorders need to be found in a timely manner.
WERMAN: John Fish with American Underwater Search and Survey speaking with us from Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Thank you very much for your time.
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