MH370: ‘Nothing can be seen, it’s EERIE’

EVERY morning starts out the same: could this be the day?

The RAAF’s 10 Squadron is all about finding things: submarines, enemy combatants, asylum boats, pirates, distressed vessels and now a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777.

It’s Tuesday, April 1, and this is the eighth time that Flight Lieutenant Russell Adams, 25, will lead a team in an Orion AP-3C on a flight deep into the Indian Ocean looking for wreckage from MH370.

It’s been 25 days since the plane went missing en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Not a single physical item connected to the plane has been found.

This crew is not paid to express doubt. Their job is to search.

Searchers ... an AP-3C Orion at RAAF Base Pearce in Perth. Source: Getty Images

7:51am: We’re the first to take off from RAAF Base Pearce, north of Perth. A Chinese military plane has already left Perth International Airport. Up to 10 ships are in the search box, 1800km west of Perth. The crew has had some reports that the weather is not good, but won’t know for sure till they’re among it.

The senior people on the flight are Flight Lieutenant Adams, a good-looking and affable young guy who’s been doing a lot of the media and has a natural star quality — he was branded a Hugh Jackman-style “hunk” recently; Flying Officer Imray Cooray, who’s the “tacco”, or tactical co-ordinator, tasked with overseeing the search mission; and Flight Lieutenant Smokey Dawson, who runs the plane’s sensor equipment.

There are 13 crew. There’s no stiff saluting or “Yes, sir” language. Based in Edinburgh out of Adelaide, they know each other well.

Boeing has given searchers a list of the likely objects that would float, if the main fuselage has gone to the depths: flight controls, ailerons, parts of the tail fin, landing gear doors, insulating ducting, cargo and baggage and seat cushions.

Eye in the sky ... Flight Lt. Russell Adams in the cockpit. Source: AP

9.14am: Flight Lieutenant Adams comes over the PA to say there’s a problem with engine four. A driveshaft which controls the engine’s electronics has sheared; but there’s no problem. The engine keeps running but will be monitored manually.

The Orions are based on an unpopular 1960s American commercial design, the Electra, converted by the military for long-range Cold War operations, able to stay up long and high (or down low) on extended snooping missions.

This particular plane was built in 1978 and will be retired within two years, to be replaced by the new P8s Australia has ordered, which are converted Boeing 737s.

Squadron 10 is looking forward to the modern P8s, because the P3s are out of date: the analogue flying controls at the front of the plane do not “talk” properly to the modern computers the sensor operators study in the plane’s mid-section.

But something will be lost. These Orions are completely hand flown and old school. “We’re all cams and pistons and valves,” says Flying Engineer Roy Day. “We have a very good idea of the aircraft in a holistic sense.”

The Orions, with four turbo-prop engines, are strong and true. They can stay up for 12 hours or more. They are fitted with radar, electro-optics (cameras), sonar and what is often the most critical asset of all: human eyes.

9.16am: Warrant Officer Adam Tucker shows a map of floating GPS buoys that have been dropped in the search zone on earlier flights. One of the hopes is that if there is wreckage in the area, these buoys will show the drift of the local currents. But it is clear there is no consistent drift out there — the buoys are floating in every direction.

9.45am: In the cockpit, Flight Lieutenant Adams says there’s no point in speculating on how the jet met its end. He says until more is known, the benefit of the doubt should go to the crew of Flight MH370.

10.49am: We start our descent to the search zone. Everyone is now “on task”. The plan is for the Orion to patrol two long legs across the breadth of the search zone, tracking east to west and then back again. The journey — just inside the search zone — will be 660 nautical miles, or about 1200km, and take three hours.

On the lookout ... a RAAF AP-3C Orion crosses the coast of Perth. Source: AFP

11.05am: We’re at an altitude of 1000ft, doing 220 knots, or 400kph. The sea is heavy, showing crashing white caps. Conditions are bad. Cloud is low.

11.15am: “This is about the worst I’ve seen it,” says Flight Lieutenant Adams.

11.33am: They shut the number one engine off to save fuel and we drop lower. In places, the cloud is so heavy nothing can be seen. It’s quite eerie out here. The difficulty and enormity of this task is becoming apparent.

11.59am: As we head further west, the seas become calm and the vision suddenly improves.

12.15pm: The Orion is talking to HMAS Toowoomba, which is somewhere in the area. It is planning to send up a Sea Hawk to begin work, and it needs to be “de-conflicted” with the low-flying Orion.

On the trail ... a map showing GPS buoys dropped in the Indian Ocean search zone. The red trails indicate the drift since the buoys were dropped. Source: News Corp Australia

12.40pm: Heavy cloud again, zero vision. Staring into the mist has a deeply soporific effect. The two guys at the middle of the plane, looking out either side through bubble windows, provide the key visuals in this search. They do not simply stare into empty ocean, they need to program themselves to look in patterns. Smokey Dawson rotates them every 20 minutes to avoid EFM — empty field myopia, a condition where the eyes, with nothing to focus on, begin to stare at a fixed point a few metres ahead. This would mean they could miss something big.

12.45pm: Some fishing buoys are sighted; and the radar (which can detect nothing underwater) makes contact with something breaking the surface. Whales, most likely.

1.20pm: Holding steady at 350ft, extraordinarily low and pretty bumpy down here. This is where the P3 is at its best. The more modern P8 jets will not be able to do this kind of slow search work.

1.38pm: Adam Tucker spots a white rectangular object, less than 1m x 1m. “Could be anything,” he says. Flares are dropped and the plane turns around to try and get a photo but it cannot be relocated. We hear Toowoomba’s Sea Hawk won’t be getting in the air today — it’s too rough.

1.45pm: Having completed the two legs, the Orion still has fuel and time. It is re-tasked by the Joint Agency Coordination Centre to head south and pick up another area. Nothing is seen.

Long days ... Flight Lt Russell Adams concentrates on the job. Source: News Corp Australia

3.00pm: We turn back for home.

“Every time you come out here, you have some expectation you’re going to find it,” says Flight Lieutenant Joel “Scratchy” McCutcheon, one of the three pilots aboard. “We have the ability to find it, but it’s not playing the game.”

The decision to keep going with the search is a political one, out of their hands. This crew is due to head back to Adelaide at the end of the week, to be replaced by another crew.

They like the work. The days are long, but they’d love to be the ones who found something conclusive.

Asked if he thinks the plane is out here, Flight Lieutenant McCutcheon says: “I think it is. Or was. I don’t think so many nations would be here if they didn’t think it was.”

Sitting in the cockpit, I notice one of engine one’s gauges is shot, but Flying Engineer Roy Day, monitoring, doesn’t see a problem. He says the old plane is fitted with so many redundancies — that is, contingencies — that it’s hard to stop it flying.

Back on land ... an AP-3C Orion returns to base after a long day searching. Source: AP

This crew has flown high over Afghanistan in support of our troops, and low over the Gulf of Aden and Somalia getting visual sightings of pirate camps. They are routinely tasked out of Darwin to work border protection patrols.

“This is the biggest operation I’ve been involved in,” says Flight Lieutenant Adams.

Smokey Dawson describes what they are all about. “Finding stuff,” he says.

He and Flight Lieutenant Adams were on the Orion that was dispatched from Adelaide, where the Orion fleet is based, to the Solomon Islands in 2012 to search for a boat that had gone missing. “We found 50 people floating in five lifeboats, second day on the job.”

Russell Adams adds: “That was the best thing I’ve ever done in my career.”

6.15pm: Land at Pearce and give the plane a “bird bath”, passing over jets of water to remove salt from the low-sea flying.

No MH370. But no lack of will to find it.

-News.com.au