Something else I've just noticed.
The 4/4 release said that the wreckage was found "in the area of the abyssal plain". (
http://www.bea.aero/fr/enquetes/vol....4avril2011.pdf)
The original french reads: "Site de l’accident dans une zone de plaine abyssal"), which I read as "in
an area of the abyssal plain". Subtle but seems to me to be slightly different.
Regardless of which is more accurate, the abyssal plain appears to lie to the
north of LKP (which looks to be right at the southern edge of the plain). This is fairly clear from Machaca's
overlay of the image from the 4/4 press release and the search zones.
When you look at the Metron analysis (20/1), you see that after discounting all the areas searched, with a weighting for efficiency of each search conducted, Metron gave 2 likelihood plots for where the wreckage could still be: figures 32 & 33 on p 35.
The 8/4 letter (
http://www.bea.aero/en/enquetes/flig...end.phase4.pdf) says:
The study carried out by Metron at the request of the BEA thus consisted, based on analysis of all of the surface and undersea search data since the accident, to attributing degrees of probability of the presence of wreckage to the various regions in the Circle, given that that those that had been covered by sonar were considered “clear”.
This study, published on the BEA website on 20 January 2011, indicated a strong possibility for discovery of the wreckage near the centre of the Circle. It was in this area that it was in fact discovered after one week of exploration thanks to the performance of the REMUS AUV’s operated by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
The interesting aspect is this: figure 32 of the Metron report is the plot assuming that one or two pingers was working, while figure 33 is the plot assuming
both failed (and hence Metron discounted searches done looking only for the pinger sound when producing it).
Figure 32 (assuming one or both pingers), shows that the hot spot (red) is almost entirely SOUTH of the LKP. It is a semicircle roughly 6 nm in radius, lopsidedly extending to about 8 nm towards the SW.
Figure 33 (assuming both pincers failed), expands the hot spot north of LKP, into the abyssal plain. It is roughly a circle about 6-7nm in radius. It includes the area in figure 32.
If we assume the 8/4 statement indicates that the wreckage was found in the red area, then:
- either the wreckage was south of LKP, in the red zone of fig 32 but not 33, in which case it is not on the abyssal plain, and BEA's reference is likely to be obfuscation to conceal its location.
OR
- it was found north of LKP, in the red zone of fig 33 only. In that situation, the wreckage could be on the abyssal plain. But it also suggests the pingers might have been disabled/destroyed on impact, unless there is some other reason they didn't activate.
See this overlay of Machaca's image and fig 33 from the report to try to make it clearer:
