Datagov Opendata Platform

Taiwan is surrounded by the sea, and the underwater terrain is variable. Especially in the eastern sea, the water is deeper and the terrain and sediment change dramatically. When aviation accidents occur here, the complex underwater sound transmission caused by environmental factors makes it difficult to collect acoustic data, as the strongest signal reception area does not necessarily indicate the location of the underwater locator beacon. This makes the search for flight recorders more challenging. In a helicopter crash off the southwest of Lanyu Island, with a water depth of approximately 1,000 meters and drastic changes in terrain, the search team detected hotspots of underwater locator beacon signals about 1 kilometer apart in three different locations. During the search, the team used the underwater terrain, sediment, and hydrological data of the area to establish an acoustic propagation model and simulated underwater sound transmission using the Gaussian beam equation, calculating the detection probability at each point. Ultimately, the search team located the flight recorder 200 meters away from the point with the highest detection probability.