Fabien Cousteau:(Jacques Cousteau's Grandson) Says: It may take years to find Flight 370--

[KoKo]

Last edited Mon Mar 24, 2014, 06:21 PM - Edit history (1)

Why the grandson of Jacques Cousteau is not optimistic about the search

Fabien Cousteau, 46, oceanographic explorer, conservationist and grandson of legendary explorer Jacques Cousteau, has been following the search for the missing jetliner. Cousteau, who will himself soon lead “ Mission 31 ,” an exploration team that will spend 31 days submerged in the Red Sea, spoke to MarketWatch about the prospects of ever finding Malaysia Flight 370.

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MarketWatch: What do you think of the chances of Australian authorities finding debris related to the plane?

Fabien Costeau: The satellite images certainly do not give a definitive answer. With the Indian Ocean, they are looking at 28 million square miles and an average depth of 13,000 feet with canyons that go down as far as 20,000 feet. It’s like looking through the front door keyhole to see what’s in your bedroom upstairs.

MW: That’s assuming this latest debris belongs to the plane.

FC: We’re dumping over a million pounds of plastic in our oceans every hour, which may cause a lot of false positives. And that’s just the plastic.

MW: It took 10 days for a French nuclear submarine to reach the crash zone of Air France Flight 447, which crashed in the Atlantic Ocean in 2009. And it took two years and four rescue missions to find the bulk of that wreckage. I’m assuming that doesn’t bode well for Flight 370.

FC: The big difference between Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 and Air France Flight 447 was that we knew approximately where it was. In this case, we have absolutely no clue. We’re going on hunches.

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MW: So do you think they will ever find Malaysia Airlines Flight 370?

FC: With enough time and perseverance and technology, we’re capable of finding any man-made objects. It may take months. It may take years to find it. It’s like any cold case. The longer you wait, the harder it is to find what you are looking for. Underwater archaeologists may spend their lifetimes looking for shipwrecks. With enough people they can probably get a reasonable guess to the general area of where that plane sunk. But there are a lot of variables: Currents, up swells, downdrafts, visibility issues and an extremely hostile environment at those depths.

MW: We know more about outer space than our oceans. For 2013, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration had an exploration budget of around $3.8 billion, while the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Exploration and Research received around $23.7 million. That’s quite a gap.

FC: We have explored less than 5% of our oceans. Whatever money they’re allotted is spent in satellite technology and coastguard support. The budgets have been consistently cut over the last several decades. But it’s extraordinarily valuable to explore our oceans. The oceans are life. Without them we don’t exist. Whatever garbage we’re putting into the ocean, we end up eating.

MW: In other words, rescuers will be going in blind — without a map?

FC: Yes, pretty much. I’ve been trying not to get oversaturated by the opinion and hypothesis. The world’s ocean — because it is essentially one large ocean — is 3.4 billion cubic kilometers of volume. This part of the Indian Ocean is almost untouched by mapping and exploration and one of the most hostile areas for sailors or even pilots flying overhead. If you stack up the will and effort that’s going into this mission, they might be able to find this particular plane, but we’re also supposing that it’s in the ocean and not on land.

MW: What is the most overlooked part of this story of the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370?
FC: How little [attention] we’ve paid to our oceans and how it impacts this kind of tragedy. What rules our health and our economy is our curiosity about what else lives on this planet. When it comes to the oceans, we are like the doctors of the 1800s who are just starting to learn a little bit about our own bodies

More: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/fabien-cousteau-it-may-take-years-to-find-flight-370-2014-03-24

[malaise]

1. Thanks for this KoKo

Rec

[KoKo]

3. I liked how he brought the state of the ocean environment into the picture...

I haven't been watching the whole missing plane thing...but, came across it and posted just for his great comments about how we aren't giving our ocean as much attention with the junk that's being dumped into it as we have our Space Program when in fact our lives depend on our Ocean.

Seems he takes after his Grandfather...who introduced many of us to our undersea world and environmentalism as towards the end of his life he saw the mounting pollution and warned us about it.

[FarCenter]

2. "lost at sea" was not an ucommon thing

There is a long list of ships and airplanes that left one port and never arrived at another, there actual fate unknown.

[Enthusiast]

4. Kicked and recommended a whole bunch.

[KoKo]

5. One of those kids who loved Jacques Coustou's "Deep Sea Adventures"

Last edited Mon Mar 24, 2014, 08:35 PM - Edit history (1)

Opened up a WORLD for us..as young ones.

's