Missing Malaysian aircraft --- this makes sense

[Bob]

I would post part of the article but why spoil it for you when I can give you a fast summary.

This pilot came up with where the missing jet was flying to and why. And if correct needs further exploring. The article includes some illustrations so with no more chat, check it out.

http://www.wired.com/2014/03/mh370-electrical-fire/

[Peter1469]

Looks like a good theory.

[Bob]

Looks like a good theory.

This article was mailed to me by a fellow pilot and we both also see it as a good theory.

Seems the article is not drawing much interest.

[waltky]

Missing MH370 could be further north...

MH370: Missing jet 'could be further north'
Wed, 27 Jul 2016 - The crashed remains from Flight MH370 could be as much as 500km further north than the current search area, argues a new modelling study.

The crashed remains from the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 could be as much as 500km further north than the current search area, say scientists in Italy. Their assessment is based on the location of confirmed debris items and computer modelling that incorporates ocean and weather data. They say this has allowed them to determine where the plane most likely hit the water and where future aircraft fragments might wash up. The MH370 search will soon be halted. Authorities have agreed that "in the absence of new credible evidence" the effort to find the plane on the ocean floor west of Australia will be suspended once a zone covering 120,000 square km has been fully surveyed. That could happen in the next few weeks. A team led by Eric Jansen, from the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change in Italy, is the latest to try its hand at using modelling to identify the impact site. The approach relies on two years of high-resolution data that describe the currents and wind conditions across the Indian and Southern oceans.

Multiple simulations were used to predict where objects might drift given different starting points. These forecasts were then analysed and the greatest weight given to those tracks that best matched the locations of known MH370 debris items. These are the parts of the Boeing 777, such as an engine cowling and wing flap, that have since washed up on the beaches of Africa and Indian-ocean islands. The conclusion is that main wreckage of the plane is likely to be in the wide search area between 28 degrees South and 35 degrees South that was designated by crash investigators. However, only the southern end of this zone - a priority segment between 32 degrees South and 35 degrees South - is currently being surveyed by underwater cameras and detectors. This still leaves a swathe of ocean floor to the north where Dr Jansen and colleagues say MH370 could possibly be resting today undiscovered.

One of the advantages of the type of model produced by the team is that its solutions can be updated as more debris is found. "We use the location where debris is found to create a ranking of the different simulations. So, the simulations that cause debris in all of the locations where this material was found - we rank those higher; and the ones that are not as good at predicting the locations of the debris - we rank them lower. And then we combine the result. This has the benefit that if new debris is found we only have to repeat the ranking, which is very fast, while the simulations of drift over two years take several hours." This means also that should more debris come to light, the model will refine its solution for where in the ocean the missing jet is most likely to be found.

And given that the underwater search is about to be suspended, Dr Jansen says perhaps greater effort should now be directed towards finding more washed-up debris. It is an endeavour that would be low-cost, he argues, but would very much aid the type of research he does, while at the same time possibly yielding additional information on the state of the aircraft in its final moments. Such inferences can be gleaned by examining materials for tell-tale damage. Dr Jansen and colleagues have published their research in the journal Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences. Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared in March 2014 with 239 passengers and crew.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36904981

[waltky]

Experts tryin' to figure out where the debris drifted from...

Experts use drift modeling to define new MH370 search zone
Aug 19,`16 -- Experts hunting for the missing Malaysian airliner are attempting to define a new search area by studying where in the Indian Ocean the first piece of wreckage recovered from the lost Boeing 777 - a wing flap - most likely drifted from after the disaster that claimed 239 lives, the new leader of the search said.

Officials are planning the next phase of the deep-sea sonar search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in case the current two-year search of 120,000 square kilometers (46,000 square miles) turns up nothing, said Australian Transport Safety Bureau chief commissioner Greg Hood, who took over leadership of the bureau last month. However, a new search would require a new funding commitment, with Malaysia, Australia and China agreeing in July that the $160 million search will be suspended once the current stretch of ocean southwest of Australia is exhausted unless new evidence emerges that would pinpoint a specific location of the aircraft. "If it is not in the area which we defined, it's going to be somewhere else in the near vicinity," Hood said in an interview this week.

Further analysis of the wing fragment known as a flaperon found on Reunion Island off the African coast in July last year - 16 months after the plane went missing - will hopefully help narrow a possible next search area outside the current boundary. Six replicas of the flaperon will be sent to Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization's oceanography department in the island state of Tasmania where scientists will determine whether it is the wind or the currents that affect how they drift, Hood said. This will enable more accurate drift modeling than is currently available. If more money becomes available, the Australian bureau, which is conducting the search on Malaysia's behalf, plans to fit the flaperons with satellite beacons and set them adrift at different points in the southern Indian Ocean around March 8 next year - the third anniversary of the disaster - and track their movements.

French police officers carry a piece of debris from a plane known as a "flaperon" on the shore of Saint-Andre, Reunion Island. An Australian official says experts hunting for the missing Malaysian airliner are attempting to define a new search area by studying where in the Indian Ocean the first piece of wreckage recovered from the lost Boeing 777 _ a wing flap _ most likely drifted from after the disaster that claimed 239 lives.

Meanwhile, barnacles found on the flaperon and an adjacent wing flap that washed up on Tanzania in June are being analyzed for clues to the latitudes they might have come from. The flap is in the Australian bureau's headquarters in Canberra where it has been scoured for clues by accident investigators. Peter Foley, the bureau's director of Flight 370 search operations since the outset, said the enhanced drift modeling would hopefully narrow the next search area to a band of 5 degrees of latitude, or 550 kilometers (340 miles). "Even the best drift analysis is not going to narrow it down to X-marks-the-spot," Foley said.

Some critics argue that the international working group that defined the current search area - which includes experts from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, Britain's Air Accidents Investigation Branch, the plane's manufacturer Boeing, Australia's Defense Science and Technology Group, satellite firm Inmarsat and electronics company Thales - made a crucial mistake by concluding that the most likely scenario was that no one was at the controls when the plane hit the ocean after flying more than five hours. The airliner veered far off course during a flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing. What happened to the plane has become one of the biggest mysteries in aviation, with a wide range of theories, including that a hijacker could have killed everyone on board early in the flight by depressurizing the plane.

MORE

[waltky]

MH370 search ‘moved to new location further north’...

MH370 search vessel Fugro Equator ‘moved to new location further north’: report
January 8, 2017 - A NEW report has claimed that in the final days of searching for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, a search vessel has moved at high speed to a new location.

The Daily Beastreports that the Dutch-owned search vessel Fugro Equator moved more than 321 kilometres north to an area experts have recently identified as likely to contain the remains of the Boeing 777. Dr Richard Cole, from the University College in London, has claimed to have detected the change in mission in his own satellite tracking. He has been following the search operation closely. The Fugro Equator was making its final sweeps in that area when it was suddenly diverted north.

Flight officer Rayan Gharazeddine scans the water in the southern Indian Ocean off Australia from a Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orion during a search for the missing MH370.

It comes after the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), which has been leading the search mission, said in a report last month that the jet is almost certainly not in the current search zone and may be further north. It is understood that the crash site might be between latitudes 32 to 36 degrees south. The Equator is now operating close to latitude 32 degrees south, The Daily Beast reports.

ATSB staff examine a piece of debris from Malaysian Airlines MH370.

Dr Cole told The Daily Beast: “Equator has re-entered the search to the north, away from the area originally identified in late 2014 by the Australian Defense Science and Technology Group. Using a sonar system, it is now checking sea floor not previously scanned. The search has only limited time left, but they are investing this remaining time in scanning the area they now believe is the most likely location of MH370.” The search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane MH370, that went missing in 2014, is set to conclude within two weeks, Malaysia’s transport minister has confirmed.

Metal box debris most likely from a nearby shipwreck in the MH370 search area

Liow Tiong Sai said and countries involved in the search — Australia, Malaysia and China — must decide whether to continue the operation in other areas. He said the decision of whether or not to extend the search beyond the 120,000 square kilometre area of the Indian Ocean covered till now, will be taken before the end of January. “We are in the final lap. The search will be completed in the next two weeks, then after that we will let people know,” Liow told reporters in Kuala Lumpur, reported The Star.

MORE