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The Aussie that might actually find MH370 -

By Marnie O'Neill , via News.com.au:

Shipwreck hunter David Mearns leads push for new MH370 search
July 28, 20174:46pm

• Video
  
  

A new MH370 search is being led by the man who found the HMAS Sydney, Shipwreck hunter David Mearns. Courtesy: Studio 10

• July 28th 2017
  
• 7 hours ago
  

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Marine scientist, oceanographer and shipwreck hunter David Mearns was awarded an honorary Order of Australia after finding WWII ship HMAS Sydney off the coast of Western Australia.


Marnie O’Neill[img=0x0]https://i1.wp.com/pixel.tcog.cp1.news.com.au/track/component/author/86e4cdf929f450a650d886f1315cb16f?t_product=tcog&t_template=s3/ncatemp/desktop/includes/content-2/authorBlockSingle[/img]

HE found the wreckage of the HMAS Sydney in the Indian Ocean in 2008 — almost 70 years after it sunk in a clash with the German cruiser Kormoran, killing all 645 on board.

Now marine scientist and oceanographer hunter David Mearns is turning his attention to an even more ambitious project — solving what is arguably the world’s greatest aviation mystery.

Mearns revealed he’s in talks with relatives of those on board missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 about a new, privately funded search for the plane, which vanished in 2014 with 239 people on board, including six Australians.

The famed shipwreck hunter said it was “inexcusable for the authorities not to do be able to continue to do something” to find the plane given that it was still not known how and why it crashed.

“I wasn’t involved (in the search for MH370) unfortunately when that happened and the government called for my assistance as I was on another project and I couldn’t respond,” Mearns said in an interview with Studio 10 this morning.

“But since the search has been suspended — which I think is basically an unacceptable thing to have happened — I’ve been working with the families and some experts to see if we could actually mount a privately funded search for the plane.

“It’s inexcusable that the plane isn’t located because it can be found — they just have to look in the right place. It can be found. The technology is there to find it, we just need to be able to look in the right place and they’re narrowing down the areas.

“The next search area would be smaller than what’s been done. Everybody should be concerned about this because until that plane is found and we recover the blackboxes, we don’t know what happened.


Lost for 66 years, WWII light cruiser HMAS Sydney was found in 67 hours by marine scientist and oceanographer David Mearns in 2008. Picture: The Finding Sydney Foundation


David Mearns at the memorial to HMAS Sydney at Mount Scott in Geraldton, Western Australia.

“We all rely on the safe operation of global airlines global airlines and this is vitally important.”

A multi-million dollar hunt for the Boeing 777 was called off in January after crews painstakingly combed a 120,000 square km search area in the southern Indian Ocean off Western Australia for three frustrating years and found nothing.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), which led the operation, said it would not resume the search unless it received credible evidence about its location.

As the man who found “the unfindable shipwreck”, HMAS Sydney, as well as the lost German raider that sunk it in 1941, Mearns believes he’s the right person to lead a fresh search for MH370.

He said it was clear authorities had been searching the wrong area “because they haven’t found it”.

“When they look in the right place they will find it, but it can be done. I’m here to tell people it can be done,” he said.

“(It was) the same way with (HMAS) Sydney. People said it was ‘the unfindable shipwreck’. It wasn’t a needle in a haystack because they didn’t even know where the haystack was but in the end I found the Kormoran in 64 hours and the Sydney in 67 hours.

“We basically found both shipwrecks in one weekend by looking in the right place with the right technology. And that’s the other key thing, technology has moved on and so now we can search much faster than before.”

“There’s an area that can be searched in an efficient way and I believe that we don’t just owe it to the families but, internationally, it’s an important thing to do.

“This is the first time a major aircraft like this has been lost without any resolution or any lessons learned about why it crashed and that is not only unacceptable, it’s inexcusable for the authorities not to do be able to continue to do something.”


Mearns said Australian authorities have been targeting the wrong search area in the hunt for MH370


The barnacle-encrusted laperon from MH370 that washed up on La Reunion.

MH370 disappeared en route from Beijing to Kuala Lumpur on March 8, 2014 with 239 crew and passengers on board.

It is believed to have deviated sharply from its course for unknown reasons and then flown south for several hours before ultimately crashing in the southern Indian Ocean off the coast of Western Australian.

As authorities conducted a futile three-year search of the seabed, dozens of pieces of wreckage, including a barnacle encrusted flaperon and cabin fragments, washed up on beaches throughout the Indian Ocean, from Reunion to Madagascar and even South Africa.

However, the fuselage and black boxes have never been found.

Malaysia Airlines CEO Peter Bellow has also expression optimism in finding the plane.

“(Given) the advances in scientific research around the location where the aircraft may have gone down ... I personally would be very surprised if in the next three or four years, we don’t get a breakthrough. I think that’s the timescale we’re looking at,” he told CNBC on Wednesday.

MTF...P2