Navy Disses CNN Report on Airliner Search

The US Navy dismissed a CNN report Thursday that the Navy had concluded the pings detected in the Indian Ocean were not from the black box recorders of missing flight MH-370.A Navy spokesman said that comments the Navy's civilian deputy director of ocean engineering,Michael Dean,made to CNN,to the effect that authorities now almost universally believe the pings did not come from the flight's black boxes,but possibly from the ship or within the electronics of the Bluefin-21 submersible,were speculative and premature.
We continue to work with our partners to more thoroughly understand the data acquired by the Towed Pinger Locator.As such,we would defer to the Australians,as the lead in the search effort,to make additional information known at the appropriate time,the spokesman said in an emailed statement.
It wasn't clear whom Mr.Dean was speaking for,but CNN proceeded to hold a discussion on the remarks with its panel of experts.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau,the agency in charge of the search,had said in a statement earlier Thursday that the search in the vicinity of the acoustic detections thought to be pings from the plane's black boxes can now be considered complete,and in its professional judgement,the area can now be discounted.*
It is common for searches to reach dead ends such as the failure of Bluefin-21 to locate the plane's black boxes in the area the pings were heard in,then pick up again with a new strategy.The next chapter of this long search will be hiring a contractor to continue the Indian Ocean hunt for the missing airliner in a few months' time.