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Whitefish engineer reflects on search for missing Malaysian jet

Sam Wilson | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 9 years, 8 months AGO
by Sam Wilson
| November 16, 2015 5:00 AM

When Jay Larsen got the call last year to head across the globe to join the search for the missing Malaysian MH370 passenger flight, it was a major break for a struggling small business owner.

“We had to basically start a survey company in the course of a couple months. Our credit cards were hot,” he said.

Larsen, an engineer who grew up in Kalispell and attended Flathead Valley Community College before studying at Montana State University and the University of Washington, owns Hydrospheric Solutions, Inc. in Whitefish. His company designs cutting-edge, specialized sonar systems capable of producing high-resolution maps of the ocean floor.

He was first exposed to radar technology while taking graduate classes in Seattle, and became interested in synthetic aperture sonar, a new technology that had only been used in military applications.

Success wasn’t guaranteed when he started the company in 2009, and both he and his wife, Katrina, struggled financially as they worked to commercialize the technology.

“Katrina and I were the first people to mortgage a house to try to do this,” he joked, adding that the acoustic imaging instruments he and his team use cost about $2 million.

Still, there’s no denying the power of Hydrospheric’s technology. Larsen said it’s so sensitive that similar instruments have been used to track the undersea rumblings of ships from Hawaii all the way to Japan — measured from a single location.

His first chance to deploy his sonar equipment came when billionaire Jeff Bezos hired the company for the successful search and recovery of the engine from the Apollo 11 Saturn rocket.

Now they’ve deployed the mapping instrument to solve one of the great aviation mysteries of all time.

For about ten hours each day of the search, the crew dragged the instrument through the waters west of Australia, producing detailed maps of about 80 square kilometers on each run. They would collect about one terabyte of data daily.

Contracts continue their search for the missing flight aren’t guaranteed, but he said he’s tentatively planning another, 42-day trip in the next couple months.

Larsen’s breakthrough hasn’t gone unnoticed. Among the honors he’s received, he’s a new inductee into the internationally renowned Explorers Club. Business has also been picking up.

In just the past few weeks, Larsen said he’s fielded inquiries from interested geologic survey companies and treasure hunters — although experience has taught him to cash the check from the latter group before committing to an expensive project.

Right now, though, his focus is on helping to bring closure to the families and loved ones of the 239 people missing along with MH370.

“We’re focused on this job. We want to see it through,” he said. “And if we find it, the sky’s the limit.”


Reporter Sam Wilson can be reached at 758-4407 or by email at swilson@dailyinterlake.com.

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