Possible MH-370 debris found on Reunion Island?

Maybe this is just a dumb idea, but it seems to me there might be value in starting some kind of a search of the ocean floor starting from Reunion Island and working backwards against the prevailing water/wind currents. It seems logical that if some debris floated to shore other debris may have sunk short of the shore. The closer they get the more debris they might find until they find the wreckage itself.

Just a thought.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

That appears to be the plan except for factoring in the currents and wind with the time elapsed since the disappearance to narrow down the search area of the ocean the plane most likely crashed in. Happens to be pretty much in the general area west of Oz where the search has been concentrated already and it's very deep and difficult going.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I think the costs of that would be ridiculous. The amount of time and equipment needed to search the sea bed over such a large area would be insane and no one would want to foot the bill for that.

They're in the right place already in my opinion. The evidence all pointed to it being in that area West of Australia, and the debris now being found on Reunion supports that too. I think they just need to keep on searching where they are and they'll find more evidence.

a reply to: Rocker2013

Agreed. It's what, a couple thousand miles in a straight line from one place to the other? Multiple that by ever how many square miles of seabed there would be to search. It would be an undertaking of astronomical proportions in every possible way.

Don't get me wrong, I wish there were some way to conduct a better search but as the saying goes, if wishes were horses...

a reply to: onehuman

I think the people on Reunion have been searching the coast themselves looking for more debris. It seems that there is a concerted effort by them to gather as much material as they can find to help the investigation.

It's likely that there will be more debris, I find it hard to imagine that the plane would be able to stay intact or that just a little of it broke off to be found. It's likely that the flaperon is just one large part of a lot of other smaller debris that people just haven't noticed arriving over the last month or so.

Indeed, the guy interviewed said he burned luggage he found on the beach, which kind of suggests that there is probably more out there waiting to be found.

I don't think anything regarding the Maldives could be considered valid, it is a few thousand miles north of where the plane was believed to be. There would be a lot more debris with those bodies if that were credible, and we wouldn't have seen the flaperon washing up on a beach thousands of miles away.

Unfortunately, all these stories, theories and conspiracies are only adding to the distress of the families, many of whom are now rejecting what we actually know.

a reply to: Rocker2013

Not suggesting a full-scale search like the one being conducted be started in this direction. More a cursory secondary search from Reunion out eastward just to see if it turns up something. Maybe an aerial search minimally.

I've long maintained that there are any number of items aboard a 777 which would float almost indefinitely, seat cushions prime among these.

Remember, in the primary search area they have found nothing at all. At least at Reunion they have found something. There is as much value in backtracking over areas where hard evidence has been found as there is continuing a search of a 'predicted' theoretical area where nothing at all has been found.

As a side note, I worked in land based SAR for a while (mountains actually). I don't claim to be an expert by any means in sea based SAR, but it seems to me there are some similarities. In a search we had two principle focus areas; one was the likely / predicted area and the other was the evidential area (i.e. an area were hard evidence was found). Sometimes these two areas would be the same, or very near each other. More often though they would be separated by some distance. The evidential area is important because it offers clues about the search in the likely area. It also provides vital information about the validity of the primary search area.

In some cases, if the two areas were separated by vast distances, information gathered at the evidential area would completely rule out the primary search area. (Blood is a good example of this in a land based scenario) It might not tell you where to move the primary focus to, but it would confirm you were wasting time searching the current primary area. However, more detailed searches of areas where hard evidence is found can provide critical clues for the proximity of the primary search.

In the case of MH370, the finding of the flapperon is huge because it can tell investigators all sorts of things. Sea growth like barnacles and the like can provide data for how long the item has been in the water (and where). Microscopic evaluation can provide data on what happened to the flapperon (i.e. structural stresses/fatigue, impact damage, etc.) For example, one of the things they are looking at now is the fact that the leading edge of the flapperon is not heavily damaged. This suggests it was likely attached to the wing (and therefore protected) when the crash occurred. This, in turn, suggests the flapperon likely came free from the wing after the initial impact.

Finding more debris like this will provide better insight into whether MH370 ran out of fuel and crashed, or if some sort of a water landing was attempted. This could be critical in determining the main wreckage's location.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Only problem is this process might bankrupt Australia's S and R ETA i just made that up btw, I'm looking into who foots the bill on this.

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
Not suggesting a full-scale search like the one being conducted be started in this direction. More a cursory secondary search from Reunion out eastward just to see if it turns up something. Maybe an aerial search minimally.

I do agree that this would be a good thing to do, in an ideal scenario, but I just don't think the cost justifies it. Their priority is finding the plane, and it seems they pretty much know where it is. All the larger pieces likely to wield the evidence they need will be there, everything else floating away should really be considered to be secondary to the primary objective.

When you consider the distances involved here it's not like flying a single plane from Reunion to Australia and looking out of the window. This would be a corridor hundreds of miles wide, requiring multiple flights, with expensive equipment, and all just to see if they can spot seats and other floating debris. I think it just makes more sense to focus all the effort and money on looking in the one place where we pretty much know it went down. That's where all the most valuable evidence is likely to be found.

Possible confirmation now.


abcnews.go.com...

“It is with a very heavy heart that I must tell you, an international team of experts have conclusively confirmed that the aircraft debris found on Reunion is indeed from MH370,” Prime Minister Najib Razak said at a brief press conference. "We now have physical evidence that ... Flight MH370 tragically ended in the Southern Indian Ocean."

While the French still are not sure.

Meanwhile, French authorities said only that there were "strong presumptions" the part was from MH370.

Well there you have it.

a reply to: grey580

Unless they can find another 777 that lost a flaperon in that area, or one that was shipped by boat, which almost never happens with aircraft parts, and went overboard, process of elimination says it's off MH370.

I still do not understand how the plane can just vanish. 777's are equipped with transponders, TCAS (traffic collision avoidance system) as well as ADS-B (automatic dependent surveillance - broadcast), the latter being permanently switched on and using GPS as well as ground stations and the fore, even in standby mode, WILL respond to interrogation from other transponders. The result being that it must have gone from being on to off, suggesting a complete loss of power which further suggests the main power systems and APU had failed.

So ATS, whaddaya think?

a reply to: lamore

A cockpit fire could easily damage the power bus that supplies power to those systems, cutting them off.

a reply to: Zaphod58

The lingering question in my mind though is this doesn't really explain the right (northward) turn out over the Andaman Sea, or the later left (sothward) turn out toward the Indian Ocean.

Edit...It would tend to explain the U-turn shortly after 0130 over the South China Sea though.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

It would depend on if both pilots were completely unconscious or just out of it and barely functional, or if everyone was out. When the 737 crashed in Athens a few years ago, there was one conscious flight attendant that was trying to help when they ran out of fuel.

Or they may have set a destination while dealing with the fire and the autopilot was trying to get there.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Shamrock6

They said they'd be trying to confirm it was today, so good to see they have. Unfortunately it doesn't lead them any closer to where the rest of it is.

A chemical analysis of the baracle shells may help with the location since the calcite will uptake minerals from the environment.

I'll just leave this here:

Reddit user tracks down every single 777 out of commission and basically every flaperon possibly unaccounted for.

np.reddit.com...

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: grey580

Unless they can find another 777 that lost a flaperon in that area, or one that was shipped by boat, which almost never happens with aircraft parts, and went overboard, process of elimination says it's off MH370.

Or it was planted there by those entities that don't want MH370 found.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Well, perhaps, but wouldn't any cabin fire which takes out the transponder (and the SDU) also take out the autopilot?

Another thing which nags on me is the last voice transmission (at 0119L). Maybe it has been paraphrased or translated improperly (thousands of times the exact same way), but "Good night. Malaysia Three Seven Zero." is improper protocol. The correct protocol should have been..."Contact Ho Chi Min on xxx point xx. Malaysia Three Seven Zero. Good night" This protocol is IFR radio comms 101 (repeat the instruction, identify who received the instruction and then anything else). This way control can correct any misinterpretation...especially at a handoff.

a reply to: Zaphod58

But a cockpit fire would have to start somewhere and the pilots would be obliged to inform ATC about the fire whilst fighting it though? They would also have time unless it was more of an explosion.