snowfalcon2;
What if the first search planes on scene would as a standard practice drop, say, twenty tracer buoys (with GPS and a location transmitter) over the search area in order to map out the surface currents as accurately as possible? Then when debris is subsequently found, this "current map" would enable much more accurate pinpointing of the actual impact point.
Undoubtedly there will be lessons learned from this incident. Your suggestion is not new to this forum, and will obviously be borne in mind for the future - one hopes.
Bear in mind that the accident happened in a rather unpredictable part of the Equatorial North Atlantic, and even though there is satellite surface current and wind data available, the reliability of the data has not been sufficiently tested. My experience suggests that the surface current vectors - comprising both direction and speed were erroneous, and reference to other drifter data is not much help either. At low latitudes a coriolis correction may not have been needed in the smoothed data supplied. In fact, subtracting around 20 degrees from the vector angle and in creasing the velocity by 50 percent will have improved my original backtrack position enormously. I had, when arriving at that position, increased the velocity by a factor of 50 percent, and it was just the vector angle(s) that let me down.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing!
machinbird;
One way to achieve a tight ground referenced turn radius is to accomplish the majority of the turn in the vertical. This may be indicative of a LOC incident early on.
From Andy Tracy's
A340/A330 Control: Flight Laws
Alternate 2 Pitch control laws are identical to Alternate 1. Lateral control law in roll is a direct law with a direct stick to surface position relationship. The gains are automatically set according to slats/flaps CONF. Yaw control law provides a Dutch roll damping function and damper authority is limited to +/4 rudder at CONF 0 and +/-15 in all other CONF. Turn coordination is provided with flat/slat extended. Protections are as in Alternate 1 except that there is no bank angle protection in ALT 2 and in the case of failure of 2 ADRs, no VSW prot and in the case of failure of 3 ADRs, no high speed protection. V/Mmo is reduced to 330/.82.
No turn coordination, RTLU locked, other distractions and the outcome could have been anything!
mm43