The Problematic Surface Currents - some answers?
Thanks for posting the link to this well presented Ifremer summary (in French) of the surface current research they have undertaken.
Additionally, detailed research by the University of Massachusetts' FVCOM group based at Dartmouth, MA, supported by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution at Cape Cod, MA, has resulted in methodology that is now capable of making sense of the surface currents in what was a poorly understood area of circulation in the equatorial latitudes of the North Atlantic.
The currents and resulting drift patterns in this area are irregular and the drift tracks so found also provide some answers as to why the aerial and surface searches failed to find debris and bodies in the first 5/6 days of searching.
Both UMass Dartmouth and WHOI were represented on the BEA's Drift Group, and in the intervening period since then have continued their research, which I am advised will be made public in due course.