Amelia Earhart search returns with huge data stockpile to review
team said. ”Big pieces of airplane wreckage weren’t immediately apparent, but after 75 years in Nikumaroro’s severe and unstable underwater environment, that’s hardly surprising. Whatever survives is difficult to locate.”
Part of the delay in any discovery is because of the constraints of the on-ship equipment, which doesn’t allow the whole extent of the gathered data to be viewed by the crew. ”We have volumes of sonar data and plenty of hours of high-definition video to check and analyze before we’ll know whether we found it” the TIGHAR team explains. “Due to the constraints of the technology, we were only ready to see standard-definition video images during actual search operations.”
Meanwhile, while “we saw no objects that we recognized as aircraft debris” they continue, “we have volumes of sonar data and plenty hours of high-definition video to study before we’ll know the result of this expedition definitively.”
“We won’t actually know what we’d have on either the sonar data or at the HD video until your time when we come again to the States. There’s a mountain of cloth to get through, and real time isn’t anything like sufficient to work out and understand the entire images and data we’ve collected. So the result of the expedition are truly not known. No big shiny silver airplane, obvious to all, however the data at the various storage devices may hold treasures” TIGHAR
The mission was plagued with technical problems, both to the survey equipment and the vessel itself. Two of the throttle control systems at the trio of engines have already failed, and despite repeated attempts to fix it has still been causing issues; therefore, however, the ship have been slowed so that it will reduce strain at the propulsion components.
Meanwhile, the survey equipment suffered from the tough conditions at Nikumaroro, where Earheart’s plane is thought to have crashed. a photograph from 1937 showing what was believed to be landing gear triggered the search, which was partially funded by the invention Channel. Evidence of an American survivor living on a close-by island also lent weight to the suggestions.
The TIGHAR team say they expect to have their data crunched by the point a documentary concerning the search is because of air on August 19.
[via Philly]