Flaperon washes up on Reunion Island

[MG23]

Originally Posted by Gysbreght

No one actually knows the seastate at the time and place flight MH370 ended. I didn't imply that a controlled ditching was easy or likely to be successful. There is also nothing to suggest that a ditching (or anything else, for that matter) was 'planned'.

If you're intentionally flying out into the middle of the ocean where you'll run out of fuel over water, you're planning to either crash or ditch, because those are your only two options. Unless you get raptured away by aliens first.

Yes, there's a tiny chance that someone just decided to fly out into the ocean on a whim, then said 'oh, crap, I'm out of fuel, I'd better try to ditch', but that's not something you can base a very expensive search operation on. The best evidence available right now says it ran out of fuel and probably spiralled into the sea.

[Gysbreght]

MG23:

The best evidence available right now says it ran out of fuel and probably spiralled into the sea.

Have you considered the evidence that nothing has been found within 15 NM of the 7th arc, and no more than a single flaperon has washed up on any shore?

[MG23]

Originally Posted by Gysbreght

MG23:
Have you considered the evidence that nothing has been found within 15 NM of the 7th arc, and no more than a single flaperon has washed up on any shore?

Yes. The error bounds on the arc positions themselves are a few miles, and wreckage, like car keys, is usually found in the last place you look. Also, didn't this recent analysis move the most probable location from the south of the search region to the north?

As for wreckage washing up, I remember the people who found this flaperon said they'd burned other debris that could have come from MH370, because they had no idea it might turn up there.

[Airclues]

wreckage, like car keys, is usually found in the last place you look.

Possibly because, once found, you stop looking.

[Chris Scott]

Quote from MG23:
"As for wreckage washing up, I remember the people who found this flaperon said they'd burned other debris that could have come from MH370, because they had no idea it might turn up there."

It may depend on the debris. Poor coastal-dwellers are unlikely to burn something that could be used to build or repair a shelter. And such items can be sold or bartered.

Regarding discussions of the aircraft's mode of entry into the sea, I've yet to read any proposed scenario that would not have produced considerable quantities of buoyant debris. (Long-time readers of this thread must forgive me for the repetition.)

Any dream of a text-book ditching on a glassy sea, followed by an intact sinking like the Vulcan in Thunderball should be left to movie makers. Given that one flaperon (which may have detached in flight, but we don't know that) managed to sail all the way to beach on tiny Réunion, the chances are that other bits of various sizes are ashore in Madagascar and/or East Africa. Sadly, they may never be found, but one hopes that governments would be spreading the word, and offering large rewards.

[Ulric]

The Telegraph article suggests that the new "hot-spot" is based on a Bayesian analysis. Such an analysis has to have reasonable assumptions for the Prior Probability to have any hope of success. I'd love to know what the assumptions were.

[sardak]

Here is the 128 page "Bayesian Methods in the Search for MH370" from the ATSB website.
http://www.atsb.gov.au/media/5733804...h_3Dec2015.pdf

[_Phoenix]

Pure math and probabilistics. I'm just happy to say that I recognized couple of formulas. But, I understood well the pictures, the probabilistic odds look so good that the authors must be millionaires of 6/49.
However, I see one big input that might impact the result, cruise speed is considered and a clean configuration (considering nobody extended the flaps, before fuel exhaustion).
The debris quantity and the extent of damage is direct proportional with ditching energy (1/2)mV^2. But the flaperon condition suggests a ditch with flaps extended. Therefore, the most probable path shown looks promising, but shorter (more north), in handshake with Global Drifter Program results.

[GlueBall]

Semi-Controlled Impact Theory Without Significant Debris

A programmed A/P ditching cannot be excluded.

A flight path with random waypoint crossings at 100 feet at slow speed could produce a low energy wings-level splashdown upon fuel exhaustion, long after the suicidal pilot had switched off the packs and leisurely asphyxiated himself and everyone else.

[vctenderness]

Now that we are in summer in the Southern Hemisphere when will the search resume?

[TWT]

Fugro Equator is onsite and searching now.

Operational Update

[ExV238]

A programmed A/P ditching cannot be excluded.

A flight path with random waypoint crossings at 100 feet at slow speed could produce a low energy wings-level splashdown upon fuel exhaustion, long after the suicidal pilot had switched off the packs and leisurely asphyxiated himself and everyone else.

Eh?

What?

This is a professional pilots' forum...

[Left Luggage]

ATSB reports

So these two new ATSB reports are very interesting. They appear to be very thorough, rigorous, considered and authoritative. They're written by people with access to most of the available data. And they've produced, using Bayesian methods, a heat map of where MH370 is most likely to be.

What we've not been given is a map showing how this hot spot compares with the area already searched. Is anyone able to overlap the hot spot with a map of the searched area?

Given the hot spot fills most of the 'indicative search area' and most of this area has already been searched, are these reports - despite their thoroughness going to help?

[onetrack]

The search involves wide-area scanning of the zone determined to be the final resting place of MH370. Once the wide area scanning is completed, data is analysed to find seabed zones or features that are "interesting", or which appear to need much closer examination. The Fugro ships then go over the sites identified, that need closer examination, with a more intensive scan.
Sometimes, natural features are discovered that resemble the aircraft wreckage - that upon closer inspection, are found to be just that - natural features.
The defined search zone contains seabed features that were previously totally unknown, despite previous deep-ocean satellite imagery of the seabed. That satellite imagery was found to be seriously lacking in detail.
Seabed features found in the intensive MH370 search include volcanoes, 1400 metre deep canyons, and a wide range of seabed conditions ranging from deep sediments to sand. Just recently, the search involved a closer look inside an extinct volcano crater.
No doubt, the deep trenches in the zone around the Broken Ridge underwater feature are "challenging" for the searchers. This Broken Ridge area is where searching has been concentrated.
The intensive scanning and data-processing produces the equivalent of a good B&W photo of the seabed, in the area scanned in detail.
Geoscience Australia is just one of the Australian Govt's scientific arms that is assisting extensively in the search for MH370, and more information about the MH370 search can be found on the Geoscience Australia site.

[MrPeabody]

Luggage Left,

Try this link for scanned area:
http://www.recole.plus.com/MH370/4-12-15.jpg

Peabody

[GlueBall]

ExV238 . . .so you are not familiar with FMC/FMS programmed flight profile capabilities?

[ExV238]

Glueball,

Fully familiar, thanks! In-depth familiar, actually.

I'm also familiar with the likely inaccuracy of a forecast QNH for an remote oceanic area hundreds of miles away and hours ahead; the speed at which an aircraft would be flying in clean configuration; the near impossibility that both engines would run out of fuel at the same instant, thus avoiding some sideslip on impact; the effect of crosswind on touchdown; the autopilot behaviour approaching the stall; the unpredictable pitch attitude on impact; the....

....ah, whatever!

[Left Luggage]

Thanks Mr Peabody. Perfect. So it looks as though most of the hot spot has been scanned with the bit short of the 7th arc still to be scanned. That's reassuring in a sad way.

[CargoFlyer11]

MH370 Was Crippled by Sudden Electrical Failure..

Exclusive: MH370 Was Crippled by Sudden Electrical Failure - The Daily Beast

'This new revelation of a serious technical problem and its immediate effects is buried in the arcane detail of a lengthy report (PDF) issued last week by the Australian Transport Bureau who are directing the search for the Boeing 777. It is the first official acknowledgement of what had previously been only speculation—that there was a sudden loss of electrical power capable of disabling vital systems.'

'The purpose of the report was to reinforce confidence that the undersea search for the airplane is being carried out in the right part of the Indian Ocean and has a high chance of success.'

[Mad (Flt) Scientist]

Originally Posted by CargoFlyer11

'This new revelation of a serious technical problem and its immediate effects is buried in the arcane detail of a lengthy report (PDF) issued last week by the Australian Transport Bureau who are directing the search for the Boeing 777. It is the first official acknowledgement of what had previously been only speculation—that there was a sudden loss of electrical power capable of disabling vital systems.'

Not necessarily at CargoFlyer who's just quoting the article.

i don't see any such "official acknowledgement" in the two recent reports. Did i miss it on skimming the reports (I admit, i skimmed) or are the media reading a lot more into the 1825 UTC logon than the report is?