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November 3, 1999 — The NOAA Ship Whiting returned to the naval base in Newport, Rhode Island, today at around 3 a.m. EST. Bad weather caused the ship to cease its mapping of the ocean floor in search of the downed EgyptAir Flight 990 aircraft. It's currently estimated that it may be Saturday at the earliest and possibly next Tuesday before the Whiting can resume its operations.

The crew of the Whiting is using its time to exchange data with the U.S. Navy that it collected during nearly 24 hours of mapping the ocean floor using its sophisticated side-scan sonar. Eventually the data will be used to produce a nautical chart of the 36-square-mile area of what may be the debris field.

A forecaster from NOAA's National Weather Service is on scene helping to provide the latest weather forecasts which will determine the resumption of the mission to locate the plane.

Background Information

NOAA SHIP WHITING

SIDE SCAN SONAR

DYNAMICALLY FOCUSED MULTI-BEAM SIDE SCAN SONAR

NOAA'S OFFICE OF COAST SURVEY — The nation's official chartmaker.

NOAA LOCATES WRECKAGE ON OCEAN FLOOR AFTER TWA FLIGHT 800 DISASTER

NOTE: A NAUTICAL MILE = 1.15 MILES ; e.g. 13.6 knots = 13.6 x 1.15 = 15.64 miles per hour

Office of NOAA Corps
Since NOAA’s beginning, a large percentage of its oceanographic, atmospheric, hydrographic, fisheries and coastal data has been collected on NOAA ships and aircraft. This fleet of platforms is managed and operated by the Office of NOAA Corps Operations, an office made up of civilians and officers of the NOAA Commissioned Corps (a uniformed service of the United States). In addition to research and monitoring activities critical to NOAA’s mission, NOAA ships and aircraft provide immediate response capabilities for unpredictable events, such as recovery and search efforts after the TWA Flight 800 crash, damage assessment after major oil spills such as the Exxon Valdez, Persian Gulf War and New Carissa, and several major hurricanes during the 1998 season.

Rear Admiral Evelyn Fields is the director of the NOAA Corps.




See real-time ocean information from a buoy near the crash site off the coast of Nantucket Island. This information comes from NOAA's National Data Buoy Center.

Contact Information

Media should contact Greg Hernandez, NOAA public affairs, in Washington, DC, at (202) 482-3091 or the main number at (202) 482-6090. Media can also contact the U.S. Coast Guard public affairs command center in Newport, Rhode Island, at (401) 841-9541, -9542, or -9580.