I never could follow the logic of the search for 447.
My understanding is that they did look around LKP from the very beginning. They found nothing on the surface initially until they searched further north. Nor did they hear the pingers.
So what would you have them do after this? Remember at that time they probably had more faith that the pingers were functioning than in their understanding of what had taken place and where the plane was. That is to say that they likely reasoned that the pingers were working elsewhere, rather than the plane was near LKP and both pingers failed. Yes this reasoning turned out to be incorrect, but I can certainly see what they were thinking.
Phase 3. They chose to search out NW, based on independent sophisticated drift analysis. This also turned out to be incorrect. But again, I can understand their thought processes.
Phase 4. Forget drift analysis. Forget pingers. Start at LKP with the group with the best credentials to do the search. And they succeeded.
I don't see a conspiracy here. To me, this reflects a determined search in the face of lots of unknowns, a few false leads, and the unexpected failure of both pingers.
Will there be lessons learned from this? Sure. But I don't believe you can question the methodology of the search.
Part of the problem here is that some of the involved parties have less that a perfect record. And so people are looking for any evidence of a repeat here. That is understandable, and on the whole it is a good thing. A degree of skepticism is healthy. Only a degree however, only up to a point. Beyond this it starts to resemble paranoia. Courts of law have to decide innocence or guilt on the facts presented - and not on the past record of the defendant.
The way this investigation is running and the involvement of external agencies gives me a degree of confidence that we can trust the conclusions. Sure there can still be bias - and as someone else hinted, subconscious bias can be the most dangerous type of all. But bias does not equate corruption.