That's a fairly strong allegation to make against the crews and owners of the search vessels - do you have any evidence to back up the suggestion that they were "just going through the motions"?

FWIW my own view is that the wreckage is probably "undiscoverable" by virtue of being either in a steep valley on the sea bed or (more probably) under a few dozen feet of seabed ooze. This means that if it's *ever* discovered it will be either by accident or due to the development of a massively different and more powerful searching technology. We're looking for obbjects a few dozen feet across in several gazillion square miles of ocean bed using technologies that need to be within a few tens of feet of an object to see it. Do the maths - the probability of finding it by random searching is not zero, but it is damned *close* to zero.

€0.03 supplied,

PDR

At last it's finished. What a waste of Oz taxpayers' money.

Agree it was a complete waste of our money and we were only involved to give credit to the charade that followed.

Once the ships have gone home, there will still be people reviewing stored sensor data for quite some time. The "search" will never really be "over" until the mystery is solved. Could some new clue be residing in existing data that will inspire a further sub-sea search? Or will some emergent sensor technology locate it in the future? Certainly possible, however unlikely it may appear at the moment.

The effort and resources put forth in the search effort since it went missing is nothing short of astounding in my view. It's sad that such an effort has not successfully located the remains to date. But that's how it stands and people will have to live with it until such time that more is known. That may or may not ever happen. Only time will tell. That's little comfort to victims families, but sometimes best efforts fail to achieve the desired result.

Time to get on with it.

Not for the relatives.

What is the global aviation industry doing to enable real time tracking of all aircraft, with no override, so we don't lose another one? As SLF, I find it incredible that this is beyond their technical ability. If it's political, someone need to get off their behind and make a stand.

The great unwashed do not care that much. If anyone is going to "make a stand" it would need to be passengers, by voting with their backsides. No airline is going to run an advertising campaign with "Fly with us, we are fully tracked, no override, so when our nut job pilot flies you into a remote ocean, you relatives will be able to locate the wreckage" ... admittedly the running costs would be close to zero (in airplane terms) but there is no real reason to do it. Find MH370 would have been interesting to the industry to find out why the loon at the controls did what he did, but that's about all. As others have said, the technology for realtime upload of CVR data exists, that would be interesting too, but that isn't going to happen either.

It's happening PeetD, but like most things to do with aviation regulatory reform, it's not happening in a hurry. Autonomous Distress Tracking will be a requirement for new aircraft from 1 January 2021. Other tracking initiatives will be implemented before then.

http://www.sarsat.noaa.gov/BMW%20201...02016%20v2.pdf

Neither a waste of our taxes nor is it fair to suggest search parties that get paid regardless of the outcome aren't giving it their best shot. That's simply demagoguery at work.

Basically, they were paid to image a large section of the Indian ocean seabed. So it is well documented that they did the job that they were tasked to do.

Responding to those who describe this as a complete waste of the money:

Of course, the Australians will likely find uses for that data. If the search is ever to be continued, a huge section of seabed has been eliminated. So it's not a complete waste.

Iridium satellite tracking devices | Blue Sky Network

This weekends SpaceX launch put 10 upgraded Iridium satellites into orbit.
Global tracking based on the Iridiums is already offered by blueskynetwork.

It's interesting no-one has found the Varig 707 or Faucett 727 which crashed in the 70s & 90s. Both of those much, much closer to land than MH370 likely is.

It's a pity they didn't take the northern search area more seriously though given where the washed up debris was.

One of the key presumptions in concluding that the crash site was in the 7th arc was that the aircraft continued on a straight autopilot course.

That presumption is now called into serious question. On the other hand, the debris found to date indicates that the collision with the sea was in uncontrolled flight.

One thing I noticed right away with the ping data is that those pings are consistent with a straight path - but far from perfectly consistent. And, of course, they are also consistent with many other paths.

There was a recent article that stated that it was likely that Boeing would take up the MH370 search when the ATSB gave up. I have seen no confirmation from anyone in authority (or Boeing) that this would be the case.

Boeing rumored to take up MH370 search

I cannot understand why Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and David Mearns were not enticed into the search for MH370.
After all, Mearns found the "unfindable" 1941 shipwreck of HMAS Sydney, in 2008, around 130 miles SW of Carnarvon - and WHOI played a substantial part in helping to locate AF447.
The wreck of HMAS Sydney was found at a depth exceeding 8000 feet, and it was found within a relatively short time after Mearns commenced his search. However, Mearns did have the benefit of warship contact records and a relatively small search area.

The two theories aren't mutually exclusive.

Once the engines quit, the question of whether or not the aircraft was flying on autopilot up to that point becomes academic.

What I did not understand (from early on) and still do not understand is what appears to be a 'single' line of reasoning and search.

A number of alternative approaches and scenario's have been proposed. At least one of those scenario's suggested a very limited search area and was presented to the ATSB and Malaysian investigations. An area in the southern Indian Ocean proposed at a time when the official search was still combing the Andaman to Perth route. As far as I know that limited scenario is still possible with the old and new drift analysis and the various confirmed finds.

Why a search for 2 years over a huge area without even talking about or checking such relatively easy check&reject alternatives.

These Fugro guys and others on board have been operating in pretty risky environment for a long time. I only have admiration for them.

Quote from .Scott:
"...the debris found to date indicates that the collision with the sea was in uncontrolled flight."
Quote from DaveReidUK:
"Once the engines quit, the question of whether or not the aircraft was flying on autopilot up to that point becomes academic."

I would go further than Dave. Any suggestion of a qualified and current B777 pilot setting the aircraft down in one piece in the Southern Indian Ocean, even if all systems were available, and the aircraft subsequently sinking intact would also lack credibility. As previously commented, this was not the River Hudson. There would be debris, regardless of the circumstances of the impact, and some pieces would float better and for longer than others.

Following the discovery of a piece of flaperon on the island of Reunion, the subsequent arrival of debris on the eastern coasts of Africa and/or Madagascar was predicted on the MH370 thread. The problem was how to locate and identify the larger pieces before they were put to good use by those residing on those shores.

Northwest Flight 2501, June 23, 1950 in Lake Michigan has never been found.

http://archive.jsonline.com/news/wis...249370671.html

Unfortunately when there's limited resources, then every day spent checking "some other area" will necessarily take away from time checking within the "most probable area".

So the best strategy is to maximize your resources by searching areas according to the best probabilities.

It will probably show up eventually, Star Dust was found over 60 years after vanishing.