Fast moving waters could stymie searchers in southern Indian Ocean
Searching the waters of the southern Indian Ocean is an enormous challenge.
The part of the Indian Ocean where possible wreckage from the missing Malaysia Airlines plane has been spotted is called the roaring 40's -- 40 degrees south of the Equator known for strong westerly winds that whip up large swells. After 12 days in these fast moving waters any wreckage on the surface could have traveled 250 miles from where a plane crashed.
That debris was recovered 2 1/2 miles below the surface of the Atlantic.
"There's no GPS, there's no radio communications, there's no power, we have to bring our own," Gallo said. "Lights don't go very far."
It could take weeks to get equipment the 1,500 miles to this search area and find submerged wreckage. It could take months more to recover it, working in a meteorological boundary line between pockets of equatorial and Antarctic air that often causes violent storms.
"You've got to deal with currents, you've got to deal with visibility, you've got to deal with things like wind and waves if the ocean acts up,"
The ocean floor where the possible debris was spotted is three miles deep, a half a mile deeper than the Air France flight.
