'Pings' may NOT have been from MH370 after all

Audio recordings of the 'ping' signals believed to have come from the black box of Flight MH370 will now not be released as doubt grows over whether they are connected with the missing plane.

The Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) headed by Angus Houston told the Herald Sun that the search group's original confidence the four accoustic 'ping' signals were from the plane had waned and the recordings would not be made public.



'The recordings of the detections will not be released at this point in time,' the JACC said.
'We continue to pursue this lead to either discount or confirm the area of the detections as the final resting place of MH370.'

The decision is a blow to the families of some of the MH370 passengers who issued a plea earlier this month to make the recordings public.

A group of families called Voice370 released a statement saying, 'We implore the Malaysian government to share and release the raw Inmarsat satellite engine ping data for 9MMRO (every ping from Friday, March 7 12:00 until the final signal was received globally) so that it can be subject to broader analysis by relevant experts.

This is a departure from Retired Air Chief Marshall Houston's certainty last month that the ping recordings were potentially from the missing plane.

Mr Houston said a possible fifth ping detected by a surveillance plane conducting an accoustic search had the potential of being from a man-made source, although it required further detailed analysis.

The Australian Joint Acoustic Analysis Centre based at HMAS Albatross in Nowra, on the NSW coast south of Sydney, had concluded that two pings detected by the ship Ocean Shield’s towed-pinger locater on April 5 and April 8 were from a source that was not of 'natural origin' and was 'likely sourced' from specific electronic equipment.

At the time, U.S. Navy Captain Mark Matthews said the it was 'certainly a man-made device emitting that signal and I have no explanation for what other component could be there'.
'I'm an engineer so I don't talk emotions too much. But certainly when I received word that they had another detection, you feel elated.

'You're hopeful that you can locate the final resting place of the aircraft and bring closure to all the families involved.'