NeoFit
The eight Self Locating Data Marker Buoys were air-dropped between 0330 and 0430z on
04 June 2010. They were tracked for many days, and perhaps you and
Slats11 will now have a better appreciation of why I was trying to explain that the currents within this region are as unpredictable as a chimp's handwriting.
The Orange and Yellow drifters dropped to the east of the LKP exhibit the greatest commonality in their tracks. They have effectively drawn what is known as the Equatorial Counter Current, while the others have fallen into "no mans land" and have made various rates of progress, in a generally clockwise direction.
Are these tracks in anyway representative of what happened in the first week of June 2009? No they are not, and I would offer that the pattern observed in the graphic above will never repeat again.
The point I have made before and shall reinforce again, is that the matching of what happens in practice with the events that cause it, is not simple. Much effort has been made to date to try and replicate these tracks using many adjusted variables. Until the methodology can be refined, and a better understanding of the small physical changes that propel the surface currents in this area, our ability to backtrack with any degree of confidence is quite limited.
Slats11
There was low profile debris found to the east of the general line in which the bodies were found. I am not going to argue the point over the leeway issue, except to say that they did make a small amount of leeway for reasons I explained earlier. The 10m wind (with lower level surface friction taken into account) was used in calculations I made with regard to the leeway made by the Vertical Stabilizer, and can be found in the old AF447 thread.
Now you could go and seek out the NOAA-OSCAR surface current data for 5 and 10 June 2010 and see how it compares with the drifters above. You'll be surprised.
mm43