Flaperon washes up on Reunion Island

[atakacs]

On what basis would Australia have any claim here?!

[The Ancient Geek]

Originally Posted by gmorton

From Le Monde newspaper, 31/07/2015

Translation: France has categorically refused to give over the piece (flaperon) despite Malaysia and Australia insisting that it be handed over to them.

The geo-politics of ocean currents!

This is the correct ICAO procedure. The first wreckage was found in French territory so the entire investigation is now in their jurisdiction [1]. They are now leading the entire investigation. They are lumbered whether they like it or not with a long, tedious and expensive investigation.
In a complex case like this many nations will cooperate but in the end the final report will be published by the French.

[1] Assuming, of course, that the item is formally identified as part of the missing MH370.

[_Phoenix]

The flaperon clearly shows crash damage at trailing edge

[Pozidrive]

Damage, yes, but how do you know that is "crash" damage Phoenix?

[_Phoenix]

The energy required to rip off the fitting and the trailing edge doesn't match a free fall impact, of a flaperon mass alone. Leading edge must be heavier than trailing edge, therefore in case of a free fall from a ship, the leading edge would bow instead.

[rh200]

This is the correct ICAO procedure. The first wreckage was found in French territory so the entire investigation is now in their jurisdiction [1]. They are now leading the entire investigation. They are lumbered whether they like it or not with a long, tedious and expensive investigation.
In a complex case like this many nations will cooperate but in the end the final report will be published by the French.

Does that then mean the French should now take responsibility for the cost and recovery operations off our coast?

[Prophead]

Oh come on, this item has been in the sea for over a year, gone through how many storms? been colliding with how much other debris and general flotsam? Collided with how many ships? been washed up on at least one shore.

How can any damage be identified as having been caused at the time of the incident

[WindSheer]

Prophead

How can any damage be identified as having been caused at the time of the incident

Well said! No doubt the investigators will pick this out through forensics and stress calc's etc. but for us arm chair experts; it's just an opinion.

[Ian W]

Originally Posted by Pastor of Muppets

Sadly Rifraf, my belief is simpler again.
A few drunk knob twiddles from a lone, hypoxic pilot trying to head home after a com destroying, explosive decompression. (Ie crew O2 cylinder failure)

This hamster wheel was broken in the first thread. If you had crew hypoxia due an oxygen bottle explosion in the EE bay (that also resulted in failures of all the transponding aids that the crew knows about but not the satellite phone or its satcom antenna power which aircrew did not know about), then at flight level 350 the useful consciousness of the crew would be at most 40 seconds. So all the "few drunk knob twiddles from a lone, hypoxic pilot trying to head home after a com destroying, explosive decompression"would have needed to generate a route with descents and climbs along the Thailand border then out into the Malacca straights and a right turn around North Sumatra and when clear of Banda Aceh a turn onto South at a suitable cruising level for 6 hours flight. You obviously haven't pulled up the inactive route made that many coherent amendments and then correctly activated the route on an FMC. Doing so while in the latter stages of hypoxia would be an impossible feat.

This was why that particular hamster wheel was abandoned.

[Ian W]

Originally Posted by Above The Clouds

Equally it and other pieces of the airframe may have detached during an uncontrolled high speed descent exceeding VMO/MMO, which could explain why little debris was ever found in the search area.

Again in the first thread someone with access to a commercial 77 flight simulator attempted to see what would happen with both engines out. The aircraft does not go into "an uncontrolled high speed descent exceeding VMO/MMO" it flies a phugoid - speed increases then the nose comes up then speed decreases till the nose goes down etc. Of course it could be manually put into a high speed descent exceeding VMO/MMO, however, contrary to your idea this would have resulted in a large amount of floating debris as the airframe would break into thousands of pieces on impact with the surface. Much of that debris would float as was the case with AFR447.

Note that finding debris only a few days later did not assist the search for the main fuselage of AFR447, so finding something from MH370 a year later only closes down the more wild tin-foil-hat hypotheses and embarrasses some authors.

[andrasz]

Translation: France has categorically refused to give over the piece (flaperon) despite Malaysia and Australia insisting that it be handed over to them

Actually the translation is:
IF Malaysia or Australia insists that it be handed over to them, France will categorically refuse.

Nuances, nuances...

[The Ancient Geek]

Originally Posted by rh200

Does that then mean the French should now take responsibility for the cost and recovery operations off our coast?

Not a simple question, the answers are horribly complicated.
The first wreckage found determines who is responsible for the investigation but responsibility for locating, recovering and handing over any wreckage found in other jurisdictions would normally (but not always) be the resonsibility of the authority in whose jurisdiction it is found.
International waters outside of territorial limits are another can of worms.

Another issue here is that BEA, the french authority, could ask any other national authority involved to conduct the investigation on their behalf.

[airman1900]

was the flaperon from India instead?

MH 270, a 777-200ER, registration 9M-MRO, construction number 28420, line number 404, was built in 2002 and delivered to Malaysian on May 31, 2002

Based on the below link from Boeing's official website, 9M-MRO flaperons were manufactured in Spain by Constructionnes Aeronauticas SA(CASA), which has been owned by EADS since 1999, now called Airbus Industrie NV. A bit ironic.

Please read the below link carefully(before you tell me that 9M-MRO was not a 777-300ER)

Design 90 Percent Complete on Long-Range Boeing 777-300ER - Jun 11, 2002

[andrasz]

There is more to it than simply who takes lead of the investigation and produces the report. There were (4) French nationals on board, and the interim report quite unambiguously stated that provided the conclusions derived from the Inmarsat data are correct, only intentional human intervention could have placed the aircraft on its final course.

Technically that conclusion should call for a homicide investigation, and as the accident happened in international waters, any claimant party could launch it. However in most jurisdictions some physical evidence is required that in fact the homicide did happen (disappearance of a person is not enough). The French have just acquired that crucial piece of evidence (I think there is no doubt this is in fact a piece of MH370), so there will be a lot of wrangling and arm twisting in the background on who has custody and under what terms can other parties gain access.

As usual, the most needy and deprived will gain the windfalls - the lawyers...

[CE-HAM]

What's the use of this debris?

OK, let's assume, it really is a part of the missing 777. Now what?
We know it must have crashed - but we knew this early March 2014.
We can safely assume it crashed in the Indian Ocean, probably west of Australia - sounds familiar from early March 2014.
The only "good" I see in it is that it gives the real search mission an emotional lift in that something tangible has been found. As for the conspirators, they will find a new theory that would be funny had not so many People died.

[Cows getting bigger]

But why would the French want to take the lead? Surely the more pragmatic course of action would be to allow the Aussies/Malaysians to run with it. After all, there's undoubtedly a cost implication.

[blakmax]

Can we determine if the damage is crash or flotsam caused/

Oh come on, this item has been in the sea for over a year, gone through how many storms? been colliding with how much other debris and general flotsam? Collided with how many ships? been washed up on at least one shore.

How can any damage be identified as having been caused at the time of the incident

Actually you can clearly distinguish between crash related damage and anything that happened in the ocean, even after the time in the water. These are carbon composite parts and they fail in a brittle nature. Unlike aluminium parts they do not bend. Either they break or they do not.

Impact with a marine object would probably cause crushing at a specific location rather than the linear separation of the entire trailing edge as evident in the photographs I have seen. It would take an exceptional coincidence of circumstances to separate the trailing edge in anything other than a high energy crash related impact, not even if the impact was with a speeding marine vessel on a free floating flaperon.

Even if an intelligent and composite technology knowledgeably terrorist (now there's an oxymoron) actually set out to intentionally break away the trailing edge to confuse the investigators, given the strength of composite materials he would need either superhuman strength or some very sophisticated test equipment to produce the identical failure surface that would be created by an ocean impact.

Gnawing by great white sharks could easily be assessed by Mick Fanning.

It is possible to clearly distinguish between compression and tension failures in composites. I would expect that ocean impact would result in one surface exhibiting tension failure and the other exhibiting compression failure, and which surface exhibits the tension or compression will depend on if the aircraft was in normal flight mode or in inverted flight. An edge-on impact would result in shear failures which again could be identified by any competent composites failure forensics specialist.

The truth will be evident from the forensic examination of the composite fracture surfaces, and if it is definitively found to be attributable to ocean exposure alone or to terrorist induced deception, then I would be prepared to expose the what is left of the family jewels and walk down the beach at Surfer's Paradise backwards towards the great white sharks if Mick Fanning joins me.

Regards

Blakmax

[discus2]

Originally Posted by Cows getting bigger

But why would the French want to take the lead? Surely the more pragmatic course of action would be to allow the Aussies/Malaysians to run with it. After all, there's undoubtedly a cost implication.

4 French citizens were onboard. Also Réunion Island were the debris were found is fully part of France as a French "département".
French are working closely with the Aussie and Malaysian authorities they are not taking the lead !
Therefore a French prosecutor is in charge of investigating the debris.
Would you find normal that an French "procureur" be in charge of an investigation for debris in Sydney harbour ?
Or else an Aussie having authority on the French Riviera ?

[The Ancient Geek]

Originally Posted by discus2

4 French citizens were onboard. Also Réunion Island were the debris were found is fully part of France as a French department.
French are working closely with the Aussie and Malaysian authorities they are not taking the lead !

The moment that the flaperon is confirmed to be part of MH370 the French are legally the investigating authority. Like it or not, that is the legal fact until they choose to delegate that authority to another authority involved in the investigation should they wish to do so.

Whoever finally ends up taking the lead will certainly work closely with all other parties involved.

[roninmission]

Marine Life on Composites

Just asking - do composite materials leach materials poisonous to ocean life (as do some plastics) thus inhibiting growth?

A lot of experts in different disciplines will be needed to gain all possible knowledge from this part.