Auraflyer
It will be interesting to see where the wreckage really is when the location is finally disclosed. I have long believed it is to the S of LKP based on drift analysis - although I am the first to admit that there are a lot of assumptions inherent in this.
Agreed. One other point that came to mind was that they located the wreckage after about a week. The original estimate was, I think 16 weeks.
This suggests they found it nearish their starting point.
I would have assumed they would start south, since that was the "red" (most likely) area in both their "everything taken account of" search area (fig #32) and their "everything except ping-only searches taken account of" search area (fig #33) (to paraphrase somewhat inaccurately).
I would assume that only once you had finished there, would you search the area north, since (a) that area had already been searched (albeit "ping-only") and (b) it would only be necessary to go there if both pingers had not activated AND nothing turned up in the south.
However mm43
noted this a while back:
The "Alucia" has arrived in the proposed search area, and my interpretation of press releases is that the search will commence in the north sector of the 20NM radius circle and progress southwards. A reposting of a previous BEA graphic with additional enhancements will provide a general indication of the area the "Alucia" will now be working in.
So if that's right, again suggests possibly in the north?
This time there is no AIS and they have not disclosed the location. Is it just coincidence, or did they make a conscious decision to deny the public this information in phase 4. If a conscious decision, why the change in policy? I guess I can understand the reasons not to disclose the location. But then why is it they apparently didn't care in the earlier searches?
Occam's razor: they might not have realised it was active the first time (or publicly available enough), and so disabled it this time (because they want to keep the location secret)? ie a simple oversight?