There are several elements that are outliers in the scan image. By outliers, I mean wreckage lying at a greater distance from the mean wreckage centerline than can be explained by their starting location on the aircraft. I am reposting MM43's image below:
Possible explanations for these outliers are:
- Thrown away from the aircraft during the initial crash and flew through the air for some distance.
- Floated on the surface for some time before sinking.
- Glided in a very slow turning stable configuration on its way to the bottom.
Identification of these outliers and their configuration should answer which influence applied. The elements that could have been thrown have particular interest in that part of the aircraft's velocity vector can be imputed from their location (but not directly from its final position). It is still necessary to estimate its time of flight in the water column.
Probably the best way to impute the aircraft's final heading is by drawing a line normal to the locations of the two engines. It won't be perfectly accurate, but probably within 20 degrees of actual due to dispersion probabilities. The heading/reciprocal heading should be inferred by relative position of various wreckage elements or by actually ID of a particular engine.