The Australian Government operates a Hydrophone Station HA01 at Cape Leeuwin as part of the Comprehensive (nuclear) Test Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO) verification program, which continuously monitors sound propagated through the Indian Ocean.
Staff at the US Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) decided to investigate the CTBTO data arriving at Cape Leeuwin because they thought that the impact of MH370 in the Indian Ocean “might have been detectable, but perhaps not easily noticed” in the recorded sound signals. The kinetic energy of a B777 impact at a speed of 490 knots is about 5.6 GJ, equivalent to about 1.3 tonnes of TNT.
A note describing the Hydroacoustic Data from HA01 can be downloaded here
@Sid Bennett
I have included 3 guest papers in the Archive in the Hydroacoustic Analysis section from Richard Stead, Ed Fenimore and Tom Kunkle of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
They argue the case that MH370 is to be found at 40.4°S near the 7th Arc.
Does 5.6GJ apply to a nose down dive that would have cause total disintegration of the plane, or to a controlled flaps down ditching? What would be detectable by the Hydrophone Station in the latter scenario?
@Andrew,
The 5.6 GJ impact was a nose down dive of MH370 a Boeing 777 with a zero fuel weight of 174,369 kg at 490 knots.
A controlled ditching at a typical landing speed would be less than 30% of this energy and not detectable.