Malaysian MH370 - Could be further north - Curt Lewis

MH370: Missing jet 'could be further north' Discovered debris (red dots) is used to weight the outcomes of multiple simulations The crashed remains from the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 could be as much as 500km further north than the current search area, say scientists in Italy. Their assessment is based on the location of confirmed debris items and computer modelling that incorporates ocean and weather data. They say this has allowed them to determine where the plane most likely hit the water and where future aircraft fragments might wash up. The MH370 search will soon be halted. The Malaysia Airlines flight disappeared in March 2014, en route from Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in China, with 239 passengers and crew on board. Authorities have agreed that "in the absence of new credible evidence" the effort to find the plane on the ocean floor west of Australia will be suspended once a zone covering 120,000 square km has been fully surveyed. That could happen in the next few weeks. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is co-ordinating the search, has previously said it is confident it is looking in the most plausible place. A team led by Eric Jansen, from the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change in Italy, is the latest to try its hand at using modelling to identify the impact site. The approach relies on two years of high-resolution data that describe the currents and wind conditions across the Indian and Southern oceans. Multiple simulations were used to predict where objects might drift given different starting points. These forecasts were then analysed and the greatest weight given to those tracks that best matched the locations of known MH370 debris items. These are the parts of the Boeing 777, such as an engine cowling and wing flap, that have since washed up on the beaches of Africa and Indian-ocean islands. The conclusion is that the main wreckage of the plane is likely to be in the wide search area between 28 degrees South and 35 degrees South that was designated by crash investigators. However, only the southern end of this zone - a priority segment between 32 degrees South and 35 degrees South - is currently being surveyed by underwater cameras and detectors. This still leaves a swathe of ocean floor to the north where Dr Jansen and colleagues say MH370 could possibly be resting today undiscovered. The results suggest the plane could be on the ocean floor to the north of the underwater search area One of the advantages of the type of model produced by the team is that its solutions can be updated as more debris is found. "We use the location where debris is found to create a ranking of the different simulations. So, the simulations that cause debris in all of the locations where this material was found - we rank those higher; and the ones that are not as good at predicting the locations of the debris - we rank them lower. "And then we combine the result. This has the benefit that if new debris is found we only have to repeat the ranking, which is very fast, while the simulations of drift over two years take several hours." This means also that should more debris come to light, the model will refine its solution for where in the ocean the missing jet is most likely to be found. And given that the underwater search is about to be suspended, Dr Jansen says perhaps greater effort should now be directed towards finding more washed-up debris. It is an endeavour that would be low-cost, he argues, but would very much aid the type of research he does, while at the same time possibly yielding additional information on the state of the aircraft in its final moments. Such inferences can be gleaned by examining materials for tell-tale damage. Dr Jansen and colleagues have published their research in the journal Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences. http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36904981 Back to Top

Startling admission in MH370 search Accusations of a cover-up and lack of transparency have dogged the two-year search for MH370. And while most theories are plainly bonkers, notably that the aircraft ended up at a Russian/Kazakh/Pakistani base, yesterday there was a startling admission from the Joint Agency Coordination Centre. Set up by the Australian government to lead the search for the Malaysia Airlines 777, the JACC has all but confirmed media reports that captain Zaharie Shah had plotted on his home flight simulator a course to the desolate Southern Indian Ocean - the focal point for search efforts. "The simulator information shows only the possibility of planning. It does not reveal what happened on the night of the aircraft's disappearance, nor where the aircraft is located," says the JACC. Nonetheless, the information does strongly suggest that MH370 was crashed deliberately, so it's astonishing and troubling that governments sat on it for so long. A murder-suicide bid by flight crew was always the likeliest scenario, though the JACC maintains that "no pilot intervening in the latter stages of the flight" is the best interpretation of what happened in MH370's final moments. This is an explicit rebuttal of the theory that the aircraft only hit the sea after a controlled glide that took it out of the 120,000sq-km search area defined by the governments of Australia, China and Malaysia. "[The] last satellite communication with the aircraft showed it was most likely in a high rate of descent in the area of what is known as the 7th arc," says the JACC. However, the JACC now also advises that if the aircraft is not found in the remaining 10,000sq-km of search area, the search will be suspended, not ended as it previously indicated. "Should credible new information emerge which can be used to identify the specific location of the aircraft, consideration will be given in determining next steps," it says. Flight MH370 Update: Wing Flap Found In Tanzania 'Highly Likely' From Missing Malaysia Airlines Plane A piece of an airplane wing found last month on Pemba Island, near Tanzania, is "highly likely" from Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, Darren Chester, Australia's minister of infrastructure and transport said Friday. Over the last few months, several debris pieces have been found that have been linked to the missing Boeing 777-200. "The wing part was found in Tanzania and transported to Australia for analysis by ATSB (Australian Transport Safety Bureau)," Chester said, in a statement. "The experts will continue to analyze this piece to assess what information can be determined from it." A flaperon found last year in the French-controlled Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean has been confirmed to be from the missing plane, following which four other parts this year have been said to be "likely" from the jet. In April, the ATSB, which is leading the search for the plane, confirmed that two debris pieces - a segment of Boeing 777 engine cowling and an interior panel from the main cabin - found on the beaches in Mossel Bay, South Africa, and Rodrigues Island in Mauritius, were "almost certainly" from the missing plane. The agency also said two items from Mozambique, which were found on Dec. 27, 2015, and Feb. 27, 2016, provided almost irrefutable evidence that the parts were from the missing plane. A multimillion-dollar search for the missing plane has so far yielded no concrete clues as to what happened to the plane, while several conspiracy theories continue to make the rounds. Last week, Malaysia, China and Australia announced that they will be suspending the underwater search for Flight MH370 in a remote area of the southern Indian Ocean, where the plane is believed to have gone down, once the designated area has been scoured. Nearly $135 million has so far been spent since the underwater search of the 46,332 sq. mile area began in 2014. On Friday, Chester said that unfavorable weather conditions could delay the operations until December. "We remain hopeful that the aircraft will be located in the remaining search area," Chester said. "As agreed by Ministers from Malaysia and the People's Republic of China and Australia at the tripartite meeting on 22 July 2016, in the event that the aircraft is not located in the current area, the search for MH370 will be suspended on the completion of the 120,000 square kilometer high priority search area unless credible new evidence about the specific location of the aircraft emerges." mh370 Malaysian and Australian investigators examine the piece of aircraft debris found on Pemba Island off the coast of Tanzania. PHOTO: ATSB The same day as news of the latest debris piece's link to the missing plane came to light, families of those on board the missing Flight MH370 protested against the tripartite decision to suspend the search. "We oppose their decision. We don't recognize it at all. That decision has no reason behind it," Boa Lanfang, 65, whose son, daughter-in-law and grandson were on the flight, reportedly said. Flight MH370 went off radar on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board while on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Most recently, a report in New York Magazine suggested that the pilot of the Boeing 777 had crashed the aircraft in order to commit suicide, citing leaked FBI documents that showed a similar course on pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah's home flight simulator. However, ATSB later refuted the report saying that the data from the home flight simulator only hinted at possible planning.