搜索马航MH370黑匣子面临巨大挑战

搜索马航MH370黑匣子面临巨大挑战

The waters in the search area can be as deep as nearly 4,600 meters, that's deeper down than the Air France plane crash site in 2009. Even if the location of the Malaysia Airlines plane’s black box is //confirm/i/ied, recovering it is fraught with challenges.

Retrieving the black box means delving down to a difficult depth. The wreckage of the Titanic lay 3,800 meters below the sea surface. The debris of the French airline jet was about 4,000 meters deep. But the search waters for the missing Malaysian plane can plunge close to 4,600 meters. Experts say looking for the black box is like finding a box on the ground in the dark while standing on a mountain top.

That's further complicated by the ocean topography. according to an expert with China's National Maritime Forecast, the area where search crews detected pulse signals is mountainous. The highest point is 1,800 meters below the surface, while trenches can be 6,000 meters deep. That's a gap of more than 4,000 meters.

And with these depths come water pressure. It's the greatest challenge for rescue vehicles. The water pressure at 4,600 meters deep is huge enough to crush most things. only certain manned submersible vehicles can bear it. But if there is any leak, the vehicles would instantly explode. Currently only China, the U.S., Russia, France, and Japan have technology capable of reaching this depth.