SWISSAIR-CRASH DIVERS ORDER AREA MAN'S SHARK DEVICES.Byline: Stacy Brown Daily News Staff Writer When a U.S. Navy salvage ship full of deep-sea divers joined Canadian divers this week to search for the wreckage of Swissair Flight 111, both crews summoned a Canyon High School Canyon High School can refer to:
Jim Morris, 34, who grew up in Canyon Country, responded by having six Shark PODs (Protective Oceanic Devices) shipped to the tiny Nova Scotia village of Peggy's Cove. Divers there fear shark attacks as they search the ocean floor for the second of two flight data recorders and for bodies of the 229 people who perished when the airliner plunged last week into the Atlantic. Morris said ship commander Rick Town called him this week requesting the devices. ``I got a call from Town, and he said he needed them right away because (American) divers and the Canadians were afraid that great whites were in the water over there,'' Morris said. Morris, who produces undersea documentaries, has come to rely on the electroshock electroshock /elec·tro·shock/ (-shok) shock produced by applying electric current to the brain. e·lec·tro·shock n. See electroconvulsive therapy. v. device. The POD, he said, was developed by a South African provincial government agency. He tested it in U.S. waters and refined it to improve protection. The device is powered by something similar to a flashlight battery, Morris said. ``This device will be able to help people who are scared of the ocean. More people can interact with the marine ecosystem now,'' Morris said. Born in Singapore, Morris moved with his family in 1971 to the U.S. and settled in Canyon Country. He studied oceanography oceanography, study of the seas and oceans. The major divisions of oceanography include the geological study of the ocean floor (see plate tectonics) and features; physical oceanography, which is concerned with the physical attributes of the ocean water, such as at UCLA UCLA University of California at Los Angeles UCLA University Center for Learning Assistance (Illinois State University) UCLA University of Carrollton, TX and Lower Addison, TX and now lives in Marina del Rey. Shark PODs, which Morris said sell for about $350 per unit, generate electromagnetic fields that sharks detect with their snouts. The energy field sends sharks swimming in the opposite direction but does not harm them. ``There have been other devices, but all (of them) have shocked the diver as much as the shark,'' Morris said. The USS Grapple, which helped recover wreckage from the ill-fated TWA TWA Time-weighted average, see there Flight 800 over Long Island two years ago, arrived in Halifax on Wednesday with 30 divers. The device, which was featured last year on the Discovery Channel, is carried in a five-pound backpack containing a battery and electronic components. It is linked by cable to a metal-plate electrode. The backpack attaches to a diver's air tank, the electrode to a fin, and at the push of a button the wearer is immediately wrapped in a protective electronic cocoon cocoon: see pupa. that extends up to 20 feet. The goal, Morris said, is not to injure the shark but to protect the divers. ``The beauty of this technology is that it doesn't hurt the shark, it just gives it a vibe that sends it away,'' Morris said. Swissair Flight 111 crashed into the Atlantic off Nova Scotia on Sept. 2, killing everyone aboard. The McDonnell Douglas MD-11 jetliner went down more than an hour after taking off from New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of for Geneva Geneva, canton and city, Switzerland Geneva (jənē`və), Fr. Genève, canton (1990 pop. 373,019), 109 sq mi (282 sq km), SW Switzerland, surrounding the southwest tip of the Lake of Geneva. , Switzerland. A Canadian Navy spokesman, Lt. Cmdr. Mike Considine, said the U.S. help is welcome. ``Let's face it, the U.S. Navy is probably the most capable in the world,'' he said. ``We would like to think that if the tables were reversed and there was something we could do to help them, we would.'' Divers are trying to retrieve the plane's cockpit voice recorder A Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) is a flight recorder used to record the audio environment in the flightdeck of an aircraft for the purpose of investigation of accidents and incidents. , which is still on the sea bottom. A signal from that recorder has been detected, but bad weather this week forced a halt in diving operations. The plane's other ``black box'' - the flight-data recorder - has been recovered and sent to a laboratory in Ottawa for examination. Canadian divers have also been trying to confirm if three large pieces of wreckage found near the flight data recorder are sections of the plane's fuselage. Morris said while the tragedy of Flight 111 is devastating dev·as·tate tr.v. dev·as·tat·ed, dev·as·tat·ing, dev·as·tates 1. To lay waste; destroy. 2. To overwhelm; confound; stun: was devastated by the rude remark. , he is gratified grat·i·fy tr.v. grat·i·fied, grat·i·fy·ing, grat·i·fies 1. To please or satisfy: His achievement gratified his father. See Synonyms at please. 2. to be able to help with the recovery. ``I'm glad that I have this device. Whatever I can do to help ease the pain of the loved ones of the deceased and whatever I can do to help the divers, I'm willing to do it. Even if it means me going out there and diving with them to find the information they need,'' Morris said. CAPTION(S): Photo PHOTO (Color) Jim Morris Developer of shark deterrent |
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