MH370 - Well who expected this?

I don't click random links - what is this about (executive summary)?

A piece of what is thought to be a Boeing 777 has washed up on Reunion Island.

"MH370 - Well who expected this ?"

Me !

As for finding the wreck..................I think they will will find more.

As for finding the CVR and the Data Recorder.................hmmm. I hope so !

Mind you, the fact that Reunion, where they found this piece of aeroplane, is about 2,500 miles from the current search area does make me wonder what we are dealing with.

The Indian Ocean gyre?

Complex gyres for sure. Not to mention varying buoyancies of the relics, and that the Indian Ocean is extremely deep with up welling and down welling shifts on a seasonal basis. Any modeling of where these parts have washed up becomes extremely complex if only in 2D, let alone 3D.

The oceanic currents & that it washed up on Reunion means the wreck is probably not far from the long established search area. 

If there are more floating debris around I expect they will be found around the Reunion, Mauritius & Mozambique area.  

And as I write this - BREAKING NEWS on BBC www  ............

A second piece of suspected plane debris has been washed ashore on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion.

The object, believed to be the door of an aircraft, was handed to the authorities after it was discovered just south of the city of St Denis.

Yes, I was aware of the complex nature of the Indian Ocean currents, but Hook's diagrams help to put it into perspective.

I understand that the UK, and no doubt others, have offered help in the form of expert analysts to try to figure out the possible route such debris and other debris might be taking.

Heard on the news that the current can travel up to 1/2 mile per hour, or 12 miles per day.  After almost 500 days, that's 6000 miles.  I am guessing that means some of the debris could have easily missed the islands off of eastern Africa, and be well into a second trip around.

The experts interviewed did say this confirms that they are searching in the right place (off of western Australia), but that the underwater topography (mountains and valleys) continues to makes the search very difficult.

I can't imagine how the news of the debris has hit the family and friends of those who died. Am sure they are grieving all over again. And despite this news eliminating any theories about survivors, am sure that nobody close to the event will feel any sense of closure until the main portion of the wreckage (and the flight data recorder) are found and analyzed.

One way to help with "closure" (whatever that means) would be to give up on the ridiculous search.

No way winky.

Most of us "normal"   people are far too curious, or inquisitive and don't need any other "reason" to justify Australia and Malaysia spending modest sums on otherwise under-utilised resources to satisfy our curiosity.

Who knows, we might even figure out what happened and be able to prevent a recurrence, or four.

How much has been spent to date ?

Just ping the forum's PA, she'll tell you all about it. She does home visits too, so you don't have to get up from your couch or pick up the phone.

It seems to be around $200m AUD thus far. Coming up to $1m per person.

I'm not curious. Some sort of rare engineering failure or psychological issue will be the conclusion they reach if they find the wreckage (which they won't).

I stand by my previous view; that aircraft safety cannot be significantly improved by the analysis of this particular crash. Air travel is already very safe indeed, and the vast majority of improvement now comes from a combination of non-crash failure analysis and simulation. A much lesser amount of information comes from crashes where the wreckage is accessible (because crashes are much less common than non-crash failures); and only a vanishingly small amount of information is lost because of exceedingly rare incidents like MH370.

I tend to think your view is wrong.

Winky,

You've aired your views before, and it's good for us to read your logic behind them. Also, I'm sure most of us can see some validity to some of your views.

However, none of the world's aviation authorities will ever let a case like this rest so soon. The aviation industry doesn't accept any incidents, no matter how minor or how difficult to investigate.

It's entirely feasible that in 50 years there will be five times the air miles being travelled as at present, so any improvements discovered now will have their effects multiplied by that factor in future.

You can call the search for MH370 a waste of time and money if you want, but it's going to carry on regardless, and has so far cost less than Man Utd's salary bill for a season.

You're right, of course. The search will go on. The cost is small in an absolute sense (but still a waste as the plane, in all likelihood, will never be found).

Some of the relatives will continue to go insane in the search for "answers" and "closure" when none will ever be forthcoming. They will search for conspiracies, and find them under every rock. No peace for them. It is a tragedy, whichever way you look at it.

So, we put the recovered flaperon back into the Southern Indian Ocean (with a tracker device) probably in March next year, at the spot and date where we think MH370 most probably came down.

We track it and see haw close it gets to Reunion. We adjust for any likely differences between 2014 v 2016 currents & winds. We then back-plot the 2016 track from Reunion to improve  (or widen) the search area.

Yes ?

No. Current and weather variations will make that a useless exercise.

But regardless of whether the plane is ever found, I would hope that what would be addressed is the fact that in this day and age a plane of that size can simply disappear with no tracking information collected. Surely presently available technology would allow for constant real time tracking of the geolocation of all major airliners 24/7.

I find the Chinese relatives refusal to accept the obvious somewhat bemusing & sad.  Yes they need closure,  but how far does that need to go ??  will they accept the fact when they find the crash site debris ?? ........  or is this apparent mistrust indicative of the way the Chinese people trust authority.

The evidence so far is close to overwhelming:

- the satellite data shows the flight ended in the southern Indian Ocean

- the flaperon find matched predictable sea current patterns 

- the paint & many other technical details, including a Malaysian Airlines repair/modification, on the flaperon all tallied with MH370's maintenance records.

It seems it might have been  better for the investigators in Toulouse to have said nothing at all until they come to a final conclusion,  leaving it open by saying that so far their were very strong indications its from MH370 is not a final conclusion. 

Just how many B777 flaperons,with Malaysian Airlines paint on,  are there lost in the Indian ocean?

I can say with 99% certainty that there is one more  .........  

No way. This one was shipped from Kazakhstan and dumped in the water to throw everyone of the track. The other one has been destroyed by the CIA.