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Montana father-son team hunts for missing Malaysia plane

In this undated photo provided by Phoenix International Holdings, crews on board the GO Phoenix, a search vessel scouring the Indian Ocean in search of a missing Malaysia Airlines plane, recover a highly specialized deep-sea survey sonar device. Whitefish, Mont.-based Hydrospheric Solutions LLC is among the crews searching for the plane, which disappeared in March. (Associated Press)
Tristan Scott Flathead Beacon (Kalispell)

KALISPELL – Jay Larsen and his 20-year-old son, Kolter, would normally be in Montana this time of year, carrying on a family hunting tradition while trekking across the high country in search of deer and elk.

Instead, the father-son duo is in pursuit of something much bigger, which could affect hundreds of family members searching for answers.

Jay and Kolter are key members of a search crew on board the GO Phoenix, a vessel scouring the Indian Ocean for the missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared March 8 while flying 239 passengers and crew members from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing.

And while the Flathead Valley natives long to be home tracking elk sign through the wet November snow, the significance of their contribution to the search expedition isn’t lost on either of them.

For eight months, family members of the missing passengers and flight crew have been waiting for answers buried in a watery abyss, and Larsen hopes his highly specialized sonar technology can help bring them to light.

Jay Larsen owns the Whitefish-based deep-sea survey company Hydrospheric Solutions LLC, and, as chief engineer of the sonar kit that the ship is towing miles beneath the ocean surface, he has spent the last month mapping the undulating mountains and crevasses of the ocean floor, working round-the-clock to locate the missing flight in the remote southern Indian Ocean. His son, Kolter, an engineering student at Montana State University, joined the crew as an electrical technician while taking a semester off from college.

The sonar that HSI is towing 3.2 miles beneath the ship is called the SLH ProSAS-60, owned by SL Hydrospheric LLC, a company that Larsen still co-manages and co-founded in 2008 with the purpose of bringing the rarefied device to the deep-sea surveying market.

The Synthetic Aperture Sonar works by sending acoustic pings off the ocean floor to form images with a resolution much higher than conventional sonar technology.

Initial reports showed the plane disappearing over the South China Sea, which is too shallow for the company’s sonar device to be of any use, but as the mystery expanded and analyses showed the plane heading west over Sumatra and into the Indian Ocean, the technology available on the market became more esoteric.

“That definitely put it in the realm of our search capabilities,” Larsen said.