Very impressive work on the part of the Drift Group, which developed a rectangular search area about 20 to 40nm NW of the LKP with an estimated 95% probability of successful discovery. Months of very high-tech science effort! Very nice regressions recently by
FluidFlow based on body drift and the SAR oil slick yielding a "most likely crash site" about 20nm SE of the LKP.
MM43's early backtracking work pointing to a site 30nm eastward of the LKP. My own "steady-drift" body recovery drawings from May (
#1178). It seems that backtracking the debris drift has put the crash site literally all over the map, depending on the model or the method and the data employed.
The most scientific (Drift Group) results were surveyed by sonar at depth during Phase 3. Perhaps the wreckage of AF447 is indeed in that rectangle, but was missed; there have been many worrisome official comments about crevasses and deep steep valleys.
We do have the ACARS messages. If the upset began or was underway at altitude at the LKP at 0210 and immediately devolved into rapid and uncontrolled descent lasting no longer than five minutes (the A/C failed to report an expected ACARS message), then
The A/C would need to maintain an average speed of 300kts over the ground (in steady descending flight) for five minutes to reach a point on the water 24.9nm from the LKP (to
FluidFlow's MostLikelySite, the Drift Group's rectangle, and further eastward to mm43's site). What's the probability of steady flight horizontal when it seems most likely from the ACARS messages that the A/C at 0210 at the LKP was upset (stalled) and already or immediately to be rapidly descending vertically (unrecoverable flat spin, later the cabin pressure alarms)?
I do wish there had been an Airbus pilot to temper the Drift Group's probabilities and explain how the A/C could possibly have been flown those 20 to 40 horizontal nautical miles (see Post #
1349) from the LKP in ALT law, given the dire circumstances reported and implied by the ACARS messages delivered from the LKP at 0210.
If there is a Phase 4 search, they should begin at the LKP, where curiously there has been no bottom search yet. We'll know in a few weeks, when BEA makes their promised September announcement.
GB
