Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Remote Hydroacoustic Detection of an Airplane Crash

  • Published:
Pure and Applied Geophysics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

This article has been updated

Abstract

On 9 April 2019, an F-35A fighter jet of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force was lost offshore northern Honshu, Japan. Underwater sound phases deemed to be associated with the crash of the aircraft were recorded by a nearby seafloor observatory and the International Monitoring System hydrophone station at Wake Island. A location and origin time estimate is derived by combining the two datasets and distinctly matches the last known position of the aircraft.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

Change history

  • 20 September 2022

    In this article the first author's email address has been updated.

References

  • Antonov, J.I., Seidov, D., Boyer, T.P., Locarnini, R.A., Mishonov, A.V., Garcia, H.E. & Johnson, D.R. (2010). World Ocean Atlas 2009. In: Levitus S.S. (Ed.), Noaa atlas nesdis 69 (vol. 2, p. 184 ff.). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blackman, D., de Groot-Hedlin, C., Harben, P., Sauter, A., & Orcutt, J. A. (2004). Testing low/very low frequency acoustic sources for basin-wide propagation in the Indian Ocean. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 116(4), 2057–2066.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bratt, S. R., & Bache, T. C. (1988). Locating events with a sparse network of regional arrays. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 78(2), 780–798.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bryan, G. M., Truchan, M., & Ewing, J. I. (1963). Long-range SOFAR studies in the South Atlantic Ocean. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 353, 1447–1462.

    Google Scholar 

  • Céspedes, I., Huang, Y., Ophir, J., & Spratt, S. (1995). Methods for estimation of subsample time delays of digitized echo signals. Ultrasonic Imaging, 17(1), 42–171.

    Google Scholar 

  • Del Pezzo, E., & Giudicepietro, F. (2002). Plane wave fitting method for a plane, small aperture, short period seismic array: a MATHCAD program. Computers and Geosciences, 28(1), 59–64.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Duncan, A.J., Gavrilov, A. & McCauley, R. (2017). Analysis of Low Frequency Underwater Acoustic Signals Possibly Related to the Loss of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 (External Aviation Investigation AE-2014-054 Final Report - Appendix H). Australian Transport Safety Bureau. https://www.atsb.gov.au/media/5773565/operational-search-for-mh370_final_3oct2017.pdf. Last accessed: 25 Jan 2022.

  • Dushaw, B. D., Worcester, P. F., Cornuelle, B. D., & Howe, B. M. (1993). On equations for the speed of sound in seawater. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 93(1), 255–275.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Graeber, F. M., & Piserchia, P. F. (2004). Zones of T-wave excitation in the NE Indian ocean mapped using variations in backazimuth over time obtained from multi-channel correlation of IMS hydrophone triplet data. Geophysical Journal International, 158(1), 239–256.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hanson, J., Le Bras, R., Dysart, P., Brumbaugh, D., Gault, A., & Guern, J. (2001). Operational processing of hydroacoustics at the Prototype International Data Center. Pure and Applied Geophysics, 158(3), 425–456.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heyburn, R., Bowers, D., & Green, D. N. (2020). Seismic and hydroacoustic observations from recent underwater events in the South Atlantic Ocean. Geophysical Journal International, 223(1), 289–300.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hirata, K., Aoyagi, M., Mikada, H., Kawaguchi, K., Kaiho, Y., Iwase, R., & Fujiwara, N. (2002). Real-time geophysical measurements on the deep seafloor using submarine cable in the southern Kurile subduction zone. IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, 27(2), 170–181.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Japan Meteorological Agency. (2019). The Seismological Bulletin of Japan: Earthquake epicenters in Japan and adjacent regions (monthly epicenter distribution), Tohoku District, April 2019. https://www.data.jma.go.jp/svd/eqev/data/bulletin/index_e.html. Last accessed: 25 Jan 2022.

  • JASDF Air Staff Office. (2019a). Factors of the F-35A fighter crash and recurrence prevention measures [in Japanese] Press Release. Ministry of Defense. https://www.mod.go.jp/asdf/news/houdou/H31/20190610.pdf (Last accessed: 25 Jan 2022).

  • JASDF Air Staff Office. (2019b). Results of the investigation into the Air Self-Defense Force F-35A fighter crash [in Japanese] Press Release. Ministry of Defense. https://www.mod.go.jp/asdf/news/houdou/H31/20190809.pdf (Last accessed: 25 Jan 2022).

  • Joint Investigation Team. (2017). Identification of the most probable final location of flight MH370 (External Aviation Investigation AE-2014-054 Final Report—Appendix B). Australian Transport Safety Bureau. https://www.atsb.gov.au/media/5773565/operational-search-for-mh370_final_3oct2017.pdf (Last accessed: 25 Jan 2022).

  • Locarnini, R.A., Mishonov, A.V., Antonov, J.I., Boyer, T.P., Garcia, H.E., Baranova, O.K. & Johnson, D.R. (2010). World Ocean Atlas 2009, Volume 1: Temperature. S. Levitus (Ed.), NOAA Atlas NESDIS 68 (p. 184 ff.). U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C..

  • Metz, D. (2022). Analysis of International Monitoring System hydrophone triplet data: Identifying the August 2021 eruption at Fukutoku-Okanoba, 24.3\(^{\circ }\)N Bonin Arc. Acoustical Science and Technology, 43(2), 125–128.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nielsen, P. L., Zampolli, M., Le Bras, R., Mialle, P., Bittner, P., Poplavskiy, A., & Özel, N. M. (2021). CTBTO’s data and analysis pertaining to the search for the missing Argentine Submarine ARA San Juan. Pure and Applied Geophysics, 178(7), 425–456.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Prior, M. (2009). Improving the accuracy of in-water travel-time predictions for seismic event location using two-dimensional underwater acoustic propagation modelling. In: 3rd International Conference and Exhibition on Underwater Acoustic Measurements: Technologies and Results (pp. 997–1002). Nafplio, Greece.

  • Prior, M., Chapman, R. & Newhall, A. (2010). The long-range detection of an accidental underwater explosion. In: Proceedings of the 10th European Conference on Underwater Acoustics (ECUA 2010). Istanbul, Turkey.

  • Prior, M. K., Meless, O., Bittner, P., & Sugioka, H. (2011). Long-range detection and location of shallow underwater explosions using deep-sound-channel hydrophones. IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, 36(4), 703–715.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ryan, W. B. F., Carbotte, S. M., Coplan, J. O., O’Hara, S., Melkonian, A., Arko, R., & Zemsky, R. (2009). Global multi-resolution topography synthesis. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 10(3), Q03014.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tolstoy, I., & Ewing, M. (1950). The T-phase of shallow-focus earthquakes. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 40(1), 25–51.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tsurugaya, Y., Gotoh, S., Mizutani, K., & Kikuchi, T. (2016). Comparison of bi-directional sound propagation in a current rip region between Tsugaru Warm Eddy and Oyashio cold water mass. Journal of the Marine Acoustics Society of Japan, 43(2), 53–70 (in Japanese).

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhang, C., Sun, B., Mo, Y. & Ma, L. (2021). Ultra-long distance explosive source localization based on characteristics of IMS acoustic signal. 2021 OES China Ocean Acoustics (COA) (pp. 905–908). Harbin, China.

Download references

Disclaimer

The views expressed in this study are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Preparatory Commission for the CTBTO.

Funding

The authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support were received during the preparation of this manuscript.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Institute for Marine Geodynamics, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, 2-15 Natsushima-cho, Yokosuka-shi, Kanagawa, 237-0061, Japan

    Dirk Metz

  2. Research Institute for Marine Geodynamics, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, 3173-25 Showa-machi, Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa, 236-0001, Japan

    Koichiro Obana & Yoshio Fukao

Authors
  1. Dirk Metz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Koichiro Obana
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Yoshio Fukao
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dirk Metz.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of Interest

The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Appendix A - Hydrophone triplet layout

Appendix A - Hydrophone triplet layout

See Fig. 4.

Fig. 4
figure 4

Schematic setup of the northern hydrophone triplet at IMS station H11, Wake Island. The two triplets are positioned at average depths of 727 (H11N) and 739 m (H11S), i.e., in close proximity to the local SOFAR channel axis. Seafloor depths at H11N and H11S are circa 1430 and 1170 m, respectively. Annual mean water column data are sampled from the 2009 World Ocean Atlas (Locarnini et al., 2010; Antonov et al., 2010); sound speed is then given following Dushaw et al. (1993)

Full size image

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Metz, D., Obana, K. & Fukao, Y. Remote Hydroacoustic Detection of an Airplane Crash. Pure Appl. Geophys. 180, 1343–1351 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-022-03117-6

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-022-03117-6

Keywords

Search

Navigation