How a Sub-Hunting Plane Could Find a Lost Airliner
If Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was indeed lost at sea, the U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon could play a key role in finding it.
The U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon has been making headlines for its role in the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. The long-range aircraft's main mission is hunting and killing submarines, but it's not just a tool for dropping torpedoes and killing enemy ships. The sensors and hardware on board can make this 130-foot airplane an essential part for the MH370 search.
The $220 million P-8A is a reconnaissance and surveillance platform. It carries the APY-10 radar, which may not be new, but is proven. The radar operates in several modes, including a high-resolution imaging synthetic aperture radar mode that can track small targets such as surfaced submarines and small, fast-moving vessels. The airplane's radar could find floating airplane parts if the debris a significant metallic area.
If a commercial ship or another aircraft spots an oil slick or airplane parts on the water's surface, the P-8A could cruise to the location, flying at 490 knots to get there quickly. Once overhead, its crew would aim a gyro-stabilized sensor turret toward the areas in question, using powerful CCDTV and image intensifiers to look for debris. (Infrared sensors would be of little use, since the debris would be the same temperature as the surroundings.)
The P-8A's sub-hunting tools can be used to monitor conditions at a water crash site, too. The plane carries 126 sonobuoys—sensor devices dropped by a rotary launcher into the water to generate sonar pulses that show what's below. The P-8A crew could drop these to search for the "ping" of a black box. They could also use them to determine the velocity and vector of currents. Knowing the drift around a possible crash site would help narrow the search areas and direct further search efforts.
A success at sea would be a welcome coup for the P8-A. Earlier this year, news surfaced of an internal Pentagon report claiming the system has serious deficiencies that hampered its deployment. However, last year the Navy said the P-8A was aircraft ready for combat deployment, and has not reported any trouble.
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