Flaperon washes up on Reunion Island

[Chris Scott]

The lone flaperon...

Quote from Gysbreght:
"I agree that a "Sully ditching" requires a conscious pilot and a benign seastate. Furthermore, that pilot must be able to think beyond normal procedures and to anticipate what is required for a successful ditching with engines out. However, a nose-up attitude between 5 and 10 degrees and low rate of descent can be achieved with the slats and flaps retracted."

Hi, I think you were quoting from Phoenix's post of just under 3 hours ago? A pitch attitude of 5 -10 degrees and a low vertical speed is perfectly achievable with a "clean" a/c, as you say. (Jet airliners do it routinely, going into holding patterns.)

The problem for ditching with no high-lift devices is that the sea-level true airspeed is likely to be at least 200 knots, even at the empty-tank weight with a load of pax (afraid I don't have any B777-200 performance figures to hand). In still air, that gives a ground speed over 50% higher than the same pitch with slats and flaps in the landing configuration, meaning well over double the kinetic energy. Unless the ocean was as glassy as the Hudson River (implying no wind...) the a/c would certainly break up.

That's part of the problem for the experts who speculate that the only piece to detach from the a/c was the flaperon. As I posted about 34 hours ago:
"More likely, they are speculating that it was set down in a controlled fashion at something like a normal approach speed.... that would also imply a fairly calm sea, wings level, nose-up pitch somewhere between 5 and 10 degrees, and low rate of descent. That could only be achieved with human intervention, and probably with both the slats and flaps extended. If they were, they would be that much more likely to have been torn off."

Also, why would the experts' lone item of floating debris happen to be washed up on an island which is merely a speck in the Indian Ocean? Far more likely eventually to arrive on the eastern coasts of Madagascar, Kenya, Tanzania, or Mozambique. My guess is that, assuming it is from MH370, it was one of many floating objects. If funds and resources were available, those long coasts would be the areas to search.