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> Its exact location was unknown for more than a century, but scientists have now found the wreck of the Mesaba by using multibeam sonar. The offshore surveying tool uses sound waves to enable seabed mapping in such detail that the superstructure can be revealed on sonar images, allowing researchers at Bangor University and Bournemouth University in the UK to positively identify the shipwreck in the Irish Sea.

TIL, the radar is detailed enough to ID the ships without using a submarine.



> TIL, the radar is detailed enough to ID the ships without using a submarine.

Sonar, not radar.

There are other types of sonar which produce good images, such as side-scan sonar:

https://www.shipwreckworld.com/articles/side-scan-sonar-imag...

Even Garmin makes them for ridiculously low prices (compared to what I remembered from the 1990s).


I just hope that this sonar is not messing up with marine life and its communication/orientation.


The real question is how many other wreckages did they find along the way


273


Can it find MH370?


Yes. You have to be searching the area where the plane crashed though. So far they have only searched the area where the plane did not crash. Uncertainty in the final minutes of flight have contributed to making the job of locating any wreckage very difficult. The ocean is large and deep and finding something as small as a passenger jet is hard unless you can narrow the search area.


Well, maybe they should try searching where the plane did crash?


They don't know where it crashed. Makes it hard to find.

Air France plane went down. They know where it went down and it still took them 2 years to locate it.

The ocean is a HUGE place.


Perhaps it crashed outside of the environment.


into another environment... no no no the ship crashed beyond the environment; it's not in the environment. ...

(for the benefit of anyone who doesn't get how great a reference this is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgrX7uOZqHI)


PlaneOutOfBoundsException


I'm thinking the plane entered a portal to the future, and some fragments were sent back to make people in our timeline think it crashed.


You always find something in the last place you look.


I always find things in the first place i looked, because i didn't look properly.


On the contrary!

This clearly shows demonstrates that no one can ever say that you don't look good.

You're definitely a good looker.


I wonder how laterally a plane crash can move after it’s reached the surface of the ocean. Ie. Currents and general drift.


Bits of MH370 have been retrieved from Madagascar beaches. The body of the plane itself may have drifted many kilometers away from the point of impact as it sank but it doesn't matter since we have no idea where it first fell other than a general "southern Indian ocean"


Interesting idea, though I suspect a ship of that size didn’t break up as much as MH370 probably did. This would make detection harder since the remaining pieces would be much smaller.


They've used multibeam sonars among other types of sonars, without success.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOjVq5szAoU

The range of sonars is quite limited and the ocean is huge. There's really no point in searching unless you have a good starting point.




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