Talk of CVRs/FDRs/tablets and phones is all very well but finding the flaperon doesn't mean we are any nearer to finding the wreckage than we were well over a year ago....
The Australian Govt minister responsible for the search has committed Australia to possibly another years searching for MH370, with further search extensions to the Southern portion of the 7th arc being the area that will be concentrated on in the next 6-9 mths, as the Southern Hemisphere Summer arrives, and the Winter roughness of the Southern Indian Ocean subsides.
One feature of the discussion that appears to be missing from all the ATSB search discussions, parameters and planning, is that there is documented evidence from limited, much earlier geo-technical sea-bed exploration in this area, that showed that there were portions of the sea-bed in the MH370 search zone, that contain substantial depths of fine sediment (essentially, fine, slimy mud).
I am under the impression that this deep mud has the potential to completely hide all the wreckage of MH370.
The search company, Fugro, is apparently using multibeam echosounder equipment, side scan sonar, underwater video, and aviation fuel detection sensors as their primary search equipment.
However, I would have thought that none of this equipment would be capable of finding aircraft wreckage fully submerged in deep fine sediment (think, the Mary Rose).
I am a little nonplussed about the lack of use of a magnetometer as part of the search equipment - which device I would have thought, would have had substantially greater search success, particularly where fine sediment is hiding wreckage - rather than the afore-mentioned array of high-tech equipment, which appears to only offer success where the wreckage is essentially visible on the sea-bed.
MH370 definitely lost at sea - Warren Truss speaks