Originally Posted by
Octane
Looking at the debris field it seems to me possibly the aircraft impacted the ocean inverted....?
Looking at the damage we can safely exclude that.
It is one of the few things we can definitely say did not happen.
=> Damage to lower half of engines, damage to lower half of Nose, flattened Crew Rest Module, etc. pp.
I have no idea where this fixation on an orientation E -> W comes from.
Looking at the typical drift speeds, and the time it takes for the debris to sink 4000m to the bottom it is absoultely logical to expect a debris spread like we see here simply due to water currents.
If the aircraft impacted in a way similar to that described by BEA it is very unlikely parts continued for much more than 50 or maybe 100m after impact.
I tend to assume that orientation during impact was not N-S due to this but even that can not be completely ruled out.
If I would have to put my 5$ on an orientation it would probably be something W -> E i.e. between NW -> SE and SW -> NE.
The significant separation of the MLG + Wing parts I attribute to 'helicoptering' and underwater 'flying' down of those parts due to the attached Wing elements. Wings work well underwater too, admirably for that matter.