SaturnV, Mr. Optimistic, Slats11, et al:
I have been trying to follow your discussion of drift, but it is not clear from your questions or responses that you are referring to the full 144 page report of the Drift Committee that proposed the Phase 3 search area. The document is available here (the report was originally written in English and the French language branch of the BEA site does not offer a French translation):
http://www.bea.aero/en/enquetes/flig...oup.report.pdf
The document is quite mathematical, but it contains a lot of raw data that is free to be reinterpreted. I believe that the members of the committee (perhaps individually) are reconsidering their own interpretation, in view of the fact that the aircraft was not found in the predicted box.
Likely you are aware of this report, so please accept my apology in advance if I'm repeating the obvious.