At this juncture it is important to look carefully at the proposals put forward by
Great Bear,
takata and also observations made by
Chris Scott, sensor_validation and others, because each submission has a point or two that could add to the understanding of "
where?".
From my own perspective, I have possibly become blinkered through making use of the OSCAR and QuikSCAT satellite data and trying to make it fit a solution.
sensor_validation pointed out an
early post of mine which attempted to make sense of the ocean current circulation at the time of the crash. What it does indicate, is that the aircraft crashed in a fickle part of the equatorial North Atlantic, and that available current data can not be relied upon explicitly. Some other factors, notably drifter buoy data from the surrounding area, once again tend to confuse the issues.
Getting back to the initial airborne searches conducted by the Brazilian Air Force (FAB); they also need to be carefully considered, though on a couple of days the cloud base was relatively low and visibility marginal. It could be that the debris was overflown, but one wonders on the lack of any radar targets. Composites don't make good targets, and neither do spoilers etc. floating flush with the surface. So the lower the altitude flown during a radar search, the less chance you have of getting meaningful returns - other than sea clutter. The following is a screen shot taken in the Rescue Coordination Center at Recife showing areas that have been searched by the FAB, and from it you will note the limited area to the west of the LKP that was covered.
Later screen shots [not shown here] show an extensive grid search undertaken once the initial debris was sighted.
In short, where we are now provides a very good and expensive analysis of where the aircraft didn't crash, and a rethink and further examination of the available data is a "must" before further funds are committed to another search.
mm43