Originally posted by Shadoko ...
... as the wreckage area on sea bed seems small, the wreckage at sea level just after the impact had to be small also. So how could it be ignored if the place was trully searched?
The small footprint of the initial sea surface debris field is probably the reason it avoided being found. Even the V/S, the largest item by far in that field avoided detection.
I have no idea if some of the low level searches were done using radar, and even if they were, there could have been sufficient sea clutter to hide other targets. Were the flights always below the cloud base? I suspect not and broken strata-cumulus can hide quite a large area in a few seconds of obscurity.
As the surface debris field spread out with the passage of time, chances of an aerial sighting lessened, and as we now know, it was a passing Singaporean registered tanker - "Ursula" that made the first sighting, which I believe was of a body.
Please don't draw any direct conclusions as to how the floating debris got to where it was found. A straight line has got nothing to do with the route taken, and as I have previously mentioned, a chimpanzee given a pencil and told to draw a line between a couple of points would probably stand a better chance of getting it right.
