Wreck interpretation
Chris Scott,
I'm beginning to regret saying anything. As you can see from the dispute about the object I thought might be the cockpit remains, its dangerous to make any assumptions from just one, third or fourth hand sonar picture. The point of my story about the technician on Odin Finder (a survey ship I first used for the Ark Royal) is that there is a big change in behaviour once objects make the transition from air to water, and I have to agree with the essence of BOAC's point.This was one of the reasons why I disagreed with mm43's view that the debris field would be realtively compact. Given the depth of water I think I said that I expected it to be spread over a kilometre. As I also said I was wrong.
What we have, publicly at least is a very rough indication of the location of the debris field, and an accurate last known position. I gather that a lot of people thought that the aircraft would have travelled farther from the last known position than it appears to have done. This obviously was the planning assumption behind the first searches. So there is a huge unknown here. What is also unknown is whether the aircraft remained substantialy intact after its impact with the surface,( I know the fin and parts of the galley and crew quarters were recovered, I'm not sure what else was) how long the wreckage remained on the surface before starting to sink and how it's break up was affected by the various currents it encountered in its descent, as well as what attitude it had adopted before its impact with the seabed, which would have cause further damage. Even the recovery of the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder won't tell us much about that part of the aircraft's journey. mm43 made the point that the location of the engines in relation to the rest of the debris would be important in providing answers to some of these questions. Can I ask if it is safe to assume that they would have seperated on impact in all circumstances?
Last edited by Jetdriver; 15th April 2011 at 23:10.