Blaine Alan Gibson, a 58-year old lawyer who lives in Seattle, Washington, has spent much of the past year traveling around the Indian Ocean region trying to solve the mystery what happened to Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. He’s been to the Maldives to talk to villagers who say they saw a large plane fly low overhead the day after the disappearance; visited Réunion Island to interview the local who found the flaperon from MH370; and met with Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss to discuss the ongoing seabed search. He has no professional background in aircraft accident investigation or journalism, and no professional accreditation. He is simply motivated by the desire to know what happened to the airliner. “I do not have a theory,” he emailed me last September. “I am just looking for evidence that may have been prematurely dismissed.”
Last week, Gibson found himself in Mozambique searching for debris on local beaches. On February 27, he says, he hired a boat captain to take him someplace where flotsam from the ocean tended to wash up. The captain chose a sandbar called Paluma a half-dozen miles from the coastal town of Vilankulos. They arrived at around 7 a.m., and after about 20 minutes on the flat, low stretch of sand the boat captain spotted something unusual and handed it to Gibson.
The next morning, Gibson emailed me a description of the object:
The debris appears to be made of a fiberglass composite and has aluminum honeycomb inside. NO STEP is written on one side. It appears to be from an aircraft wing … The piece is torn and broken into a triangular shape, 94 cm long at the base and 60 cm high. The remaining highlock pin has a 10 mm diameter head. The pin itself is about 12 mm long. The bolt holes are spaced about 30 mm apart from center to center of hole. The distance from the edge of the hole with the pin to the intact edge is about 8 mm. At the bottom of the intact edge there is a very thin (1 to 2 mm thick) strip of dried rubber remaining that runs about 30 mm along the edge before it was broken off. The intact edge is only 65 mm long. All the rest is broken.
In a video that Gibson posted to a closed-access Facebook page, the fragment looks quite light and insubstantial, easy enough for one man to pick up and wave around — unlike the flaperon found on Réunion, which required several people to lift. Gibson asked me to keep his find a secret, explaining, “It is too large and metallic to be easily taken out of the country, and needs to have its provenance documented. The procedure with other possible debris discoveries in La Réunion, Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia has been to report it to local authorities first. Then the responsible international investigators can come to inspect.”
On Tuesday, Gibson bundled up the piece in cardboard and flew with it to Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, to turn it over to the authorities. Wednesday morning, news articles about the discovery appeared on CNN, the BBC, NBC, and elsewhere. According to these accounts, experts believe that the piece could be part of the composite skin from the horizontal stabilizer – that is, one of the miniature “wings” on either side of the tail — of a 777. And, of course, no other 777 has been lost in the Indian Ocean except for MH370.
On Wednesday afternoon, I managed to reach Gibson by phone in Maputo. He sounded tired but elated, having just gotten off a live interview on Richard Quest’s show on CNN. “I did not expect that this would all hit this early and so fast,” he said. He told me that he and the Australian consul had met earlier that day with the head of civil aviation in Mozambique, who promised that he would do the proper paperwork and then turn the piece over to the Australian Transportation Safety Board, who are overseeing the search for MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean. “It’s in very good hands,” he said.
When he first held the piece, he told me, his immediate reaction was that it was so light and thin, that it was probably from some light aircraft or small plane — “but maybe it’s from MH370.” Only when back on dry land and able to consult with other MH370 researchers did he realize that the lettering looks identical to the “NO STEP” warnings on the wings of 777s, and the alphanumerical code on the head of a rivet indicates that it’s a fastener used in the aerospace industry.
To verify that the part could indeed have floated its way naturally to the beach, he had put it in the ocean and photographed it floating “just absolutely flat as a pancake” at the surface. He was struck by the absence of marine life. “There were a few little things that looked like a little bit of algae or calcification that may have come from something that tried to attach there,” he says. “But the top surface with NO STEP on it was very smooth, and the bottom was a little rougher but still pretty smooth.”
He knows that sounds odd: after two years in the ocean, a piece of floating debris should be encrusted with growth. But having spent the last year steeped in the oddness of the case, he’s learned to expect the unexpected. “I’m open to anything,” he says. Even the timing of the discovery was eyebrow-raising: Just a few days before the second anniversary of the MH370’s disappearance.
The yearlong plunge into the case is just the latest rabbit hole for the California-bred Gibson, who is fluent in six languages. In the past he has traveled to remote Siberia to investigate the Tunguska meteor, to Central America to figure out why the Maya disappeared, and to Ethiopia in search of the Lost Ark. So he knows not only about unraveling weird mysteries, but also the skepticism that such efforts can engender. “I can tell you this about that piece: it is absolutely authentically there,” he says. “There is no way that that was planted there by any shenanigans. I rode with those guys on the boat there, and they didn’t carry anything there. It was a completely natural find. It was just freak luck or destiny, whatever you want to call it.”
This piece originally appeared on the New York magazine web site on March 3, 2016.
@Jeff: no, I’m not – and no, they aren’t.
My skepticism derives exclusively from the credibility gap of the data itself.
And we have several other sources of potential evidence – most of which conflict with the signal data.
Your own theory conflicts with half of the signal data, and Victor has argued eloquently and intelligently for at least a harder look at the primary radar data.
Even those with no particular expertise or experience understand that a screenshot of a PowerPoint slide is a pretty shady primary radar record – and that the delayed release, redacted fields/records, and shifting official interpretations of the signal data don’t smell very good, either.
Heck, even search officials seem to be walking away from the primary radar data. We seem to have gone from a path through the Malacca Strait down to a single dot at 18:22…
The other piece of evidence we have – or SHOULD have – is a hard range limit based on last known position/heading/alt/FOB. But there, too, we’ve gone backwards:
– from what once was a definitive limit (which failed all sniff tests – including Victor’s)
– to one which ruled OUT (wrongly, I pointed out 15 months ago) where they started searching 3 months ago
– to something now hopelessly baked into a Bayesian probability cloud (I asked ATSB to account for this: they took the usual zero.)
Jeff, your scenario could well be very close to the truth. I’m not here to argue scenarios. But it is beyond debate that key truths are being systematically shielded from public view. The debate has moved on to what those truths might be, whether we ought to assert our right to know what they are, and if so, how best to assert this right.
@Matty – Perth
If Bailey wants to be taken seriously, he should at least mention/refute the current interpretation of the final BFO value.
It is obvious that the ATSB is aware that MH370 likely was under pilot control until at least 18:25 and they repeatedly said so. But how does Bailey know it was still under control by the end of the flight? Much can happen in six hours in a situation like that.
@TheDrop, I looked at your photo. It doesn’t look like a decal to me. At the broken and partly open ridges you can see clearly white paint under the black coat. But you cannot see black paint under the white coat. But that would be expected in a decal.
@mm33vv
Take a look at this picture of Fugro Equator : http://www.fugro.com/images/default-source/Expertise/our-services/fugro-equator-atsb-photo-by-justin-baulch.jpg
Do you reckon all those whitecaps would show up in a satellite image, or are they invisible to satellite imaging? How many whitecaps did you tag in your work, or did you just tag everything white? Did you locate the flaperon in this debris? Why not?
Nederland – I see where you are coming from but as I have kept on saying all by myself for nearly two years – no one wants to guarantee the data! Does Bailey – who I have no association with on any level – really have to weigh in on what nobody will bet the farm on, and on what appears to be wrong anyway. Bailey is hinging on debris or the lack of, and his intuition as a pilot, many analysts are sticking to their spreadsheets. By the sound of it he doesn’t really rate the modeling.
@littlefoot
I’m having a difficult time seeing what you’re seeing based on that description. If my explanation is correct, I would expect white paint under black, as well as black under white as I think item 1 shows.
I do see your point about the edges of the paint in the cracked ridges though. It’s curious to me why there is a double border around the letter forms if this is truly a stencil.
@TheDrop
I understand what you are referring to.
Keep in mind that the white objects in the image I have are often 30-40 mt long, I measured them with GIS software. And they are in a a zone that has a 100mt water depth. They can’t be waves. I have many images. I am sure of what I am saying.
@Matty – Perth
If you don’t glide but ditch, you still crash – and the plane is in the search area, if other assumptions are correct. No need to look further south then.
If you glide and ditch, you definitely crash (according to Bailey), then you still have debris. And the further south you get, the less likely you are to find debris eventually on La Reunion or off Mozambique. It should float to Australia or the Antarctis.
I just don’t buy the freak suicide narrative. And what do you do if you survive the crash? Wouldn’t that be failure of some sort?
@mm33vv, Occam’s razor=waves. Please, no more of this.
@all, Someone’s posted a fairly decent picture of a 777 horizontal stabilizer on airliner.net:
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Emirates/Boeing-777-31H-ER/1314410/L/
You can just about make out the “NO STEP” lettering.
I’m still amazed people haven’t come forward with better photos and illustrations, like they did immediately after the flaperon came to light.
@jeffwise – THANK YOU! And I couldn’t agree more, where are all the diagrams?
Very much appreciate the link sir.
@TheDrop, I agree, that I csn’t explain the thin white lines along the edges of the black letters, either. Also the white edges seem to be slightly raised – as if the blsck letters have been inlaid somehow. That is no method of stencilling I know of. But then I’m no expert in industrial stencilling.
But all this doesn’t devaluate RL3’s observation that a purported sandblasting should’ve dimmed and damaged the letters more. The damage we see on the pictures seems to be mainly from the cracks.
In order to assess this scientifically we would need to compare this piece of a stabilizer with another stabilizer which has been attached to a plane for a while but which has not been in the ocean. Because some superficial damages might be simply due to the wear and tear of daily flights.
Let’s cross our fingers that eventually true experts will look into this.
@jeff,
Something in that image strikes me as odd. May I draw your attention to the hatch (?) just aft and to starboard of the tail fin. To the left of the hatch and down the port side there is a clearly visible shadow cast, similar to those cast by the small antennae in front of the tail fin.
You can also clearly see the corresponding shadow of such an antenna on the port side horizontal stabilizer.
But for all my trying, I cannot make out any such appendage near the hatch, which would cast such a shadow. Looking at the appendages in front of the tail fin, they should clearly stand out brightly.
What is going on here? Am I starting to “see things” or has someone doctored this image?
@littlefoot
Agreed, experts would be good here.
The lack of any sandblasted effect on the piece is as curious to me as the lack of sand within the part and lack of marine life on it. The entire thing doesn’t add up. I have spent considerable time kicking this around to no avail. I’m stumped without considering nefarious activity and – even then – why/how would someone (or group of “someones”) have pulled it off? Improbable (!) IMHO, but I will add I am somewhat of an “anti-conspiracy” person…
@MuOne, I can see exactly what you’re talking about. Here’s something else: look at the starboard side of the vertical stabilizer (let’s just call it the “fin”). The black, bottommost stripe is like a mirror, reflecting with slight distortion the tapered side of the hull below it. In the reflection you can see three black diamondlike shapes, that don’t seem to be on the hull itself.
I mean it doesn’t mean anything, this can’t have anything to do with MH370, but it’s weird. I guess there are a lot of weird things in the world once you start looking closely!
@all
Just got the last of my 2015 tax info to my CPA. What a freakin’ nightmare. If I was a CPA, I would have shot myself a couple of decades ago. I am always in a funk this time of year.
Moving along. What are people working on? I am stumped, and need some new ideas. I ran another scenario that works out pretty clean, but makes little sense relative to why someone would fly in that direction (terminus a bit North of Oleksandr’s). Guess everyone is waiting for the next FI like I am. I am actually feeling a bit energized, and anxious to move forward.
Relative to the new debris find – I will let the experts weigh in. Probably does little good to speculate.
Nederland – I don’t believe it’s suicide either but Bailey is right to suggest the search was politically constrained from the outset. What does a pilot do once he has it down largely intact? Opt for drowning?
Ages ago I said there was far too much stink around this to seriously anticipate a good search result, but sat gurus were convinced of what they were looking at. I think it’s a unique event that some govts are tip-toeing around.
The last bit seems to have been out there for about a week. Planting objects is standard fare for espionage/counter espionage though. Someone could easily have followed Gibson to that location, or he procured a bit of 777? Or somehow it’s legit? As with the flaperon there are no images of how it initially presented on the beach, this alone is odd. Taking a photo is the first thing that happens these days.
@DennisW: Here’s a speculative exercise, if you’re looking for something to do: if this piece comes from a 777, does that mean it comes from MH370? If it comes from MH370, and doesn’t seem like it could have been in the water for two years, does that mean it was planted? If it was planted, does that mean that MH370 didn’t go into the SIO?
yet another Off-Topic? – no more of this, I promise
while working here on something else too, I scanned in spectrum something which is named “USB Power Delivery” – and in parallel with what we are doing here, it seems that world unification deepens, despite media clashes and conflicts rising; imagine, for travel, on planes and hotels, to have USB female near the seat or on the wall, which can be so smart to negotiate not only 7.5W (5V/1.5A), but also 60W (12V/5A) or even 100W (20V/5A) to power and charge all your laptops (even quite big one and not only them) without the need of specific manufacturers “brick” (not to mention at least one subject still refusing to comply). This is jointly approved by EU and China to standardize on, even as IEC global specification (Australia and New Zealand example image of such smart wall socket included).
It is just refreshing what all is done behind the scenes by working together globally to combat climate change and waste of energy, both electric and human.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#Power
@jeffwise is it made from the same material as the flaperon?! I’m not sure if we can conclude that it wasn’t 2 years in water just looking at the pictures without spectroscopy etc.
@MuOne/Jeff,
I think the items you are referring to are the covers for the rudder anti balance tab.
OZ
@Jeff
I too am puzzled by the condition of the part relative to other items that have been in the ocean that long. My inclination is to sit it out, and wait for the right people to look at it and weigh in. If it is a 777 part, and the condition cannot be reconciled with the drift time, it opens up a huge can of worms.
@Oleksandr said, “BTW, CNN and ChannelNewsAsia suggested that this piece could be a skin of stabiliser at the time, when you cited Don, who said b777 does not have such components. That means some other experts had access to the photographs one day before you and Don.”
Blaine shared the pictures with the FB group on Sunday (my time) with the request to help identify the part. I shared the pictures with Don and Mike soon after. Being Sunday, Blaine could not bring the part to the attention of the authorities until Monday. I do not know whom the Mozambique officials were able to contact, but on Wednesday there was already a news report that a US official had identified the part. They didn’t have the pictures first. They were just much quicker to identify the part.
@Oleksandr said, “A lawyer must know that the debris he found must be carefully examined and documented before removal, but apparently he did not follow ‘procedure’. Why?”
Think about. Blaine finds this part on an offshore sandbank. It’s Sunday. Tides and currents make access to the sandbank difficult outside of certain windows of time. He obviously doesn’t want to abandon the part. He knows it would be difficult to reach the proper authorities and to have them arrive in a timely manner. He probably is not even sure who he can trust. So he takes possession of the part for safe keeping and further documentation. Under the circumstances, I would have done exactly the same thing.
@jeff, Oz,
I now think, the hatch may be open, tilted up and forward, and is the actual source of the shadow. So no mystery there.
Re the diamonds, I noticed them too, but put them down to being some kind of hinges for the lower control surface. Though it would be odd that they don’t seem to have fairings.
Anyhow, as jeff said, there’s no connection to MH370. T’was me seeing things…
@VictorI,
I agree with the securing of the evidence by taking it into posession.
However, given Blaine is quite methodical, I would have thought, that he’d take a photo or two of the undisturbed part before removing it.
Are you aware of any such photos in Blaines collection?
I recall one photo you tweeted, which had the part on the sand. That was not an initial undisturbed shot. It clearly showed an imprint of the part’s lower edge in the sand, which was at some distance from the lower edge. In other words, the part was dropped onto the sand, bounced slightly and came to rest a couple of cm away.
@MuOne,
Now I get the shadow you are referring to, the hatch is the APU air intake….and yes it’s open producing the shadow.
OZ
I wasn’t going to comment today, but in light of all the posts I’ve read today I cannot stay silent. First of all there is so much controversy about drift patterns in the s indian ocean. I’ve seen so many different models and opinions, who is right and who is wrong? Seems like too many unknowns to say for certain where the debris actually came from. Although IMO I’ve never believed it was in the s. Indian ocean. I have seen all the images people tagged from tomnod in those first few weeks and it really makes me wonder as to why coordinates were changed and anyone who has posted debris pics are now being attacked and saying they are all waves. Yeah ok waves have crosses on them and tiger stripes, guess people see what they want to see. IDK but to me there were some images that looked like military debris and I’m guessing due to the military exercises happening in that region in Feb and March, could very well be. Some of those debris pics were huge and obviously not waves as some on here would like us to believe, please I’m not that gullible, seriously????
One thing that bothers me to this day is that why has NO debris washed up on Australia coasts???? The way the drift models look if the plane did go to the SIO, (which I’m sure it didn’t) why is there no debris there, yet debris shows up on the opposite side of indian ocean near Africa coast? That is not a coincidence is it? There are those who would like us to believe this evidence was planted, but the flaperon indeed had barnacles on it, but this latest piece found in mosambique didn’t. Why, well we questioned a scientist and his explanation was this: Barnacles need an to attach to an area and hang off of, with the flap it had depth to it and if you noticed that’s where most of the barnacles were located on the sides where there was depth to the part. Because this piece (no step) was flat they wouldn’t be able to attach and stay on due to being sandblasted if it spent time on the sand bar.
Also Ive noticed that many family members have filed lawsuits against MAS now MAB, before the March 8th deadline, which coincidentally is when the French BEA report is due on the flaperon. Like all other evidence (which isn’t much) seems to just disappear and not be mentioned again once it is in official hands. Coincidence, no I do not believe in coincidences, everything happens for a reason, and this case there is a reason, we just don’t know what it is, but you can bet your you know what that there are somebody’s who do know. I never was one for conspiracies but this case just keeps getting weirder by the minute, anyone else noticed that??
One more thing, about the radar, when I look back at the factual report there are holes in the radar, as in breaks in the track when it turn red back? Why is that? I’ve been reading up on the radar coverage and the military radar wouldn’t miss a beat there, so something is amiss, no? I just can’t fathom that anyone in that whole area would EVER turn their radars off, especially Australia? I read a report today that JORN is the biggest military capability in that area joint with the USA. They didn’t see it? They can find a small boat with refugees floating yet never saw a big 777 coming their way. No something just doesn’t sit right with me there. Yet millions of $$$ spent on searching an area in the S indian ocean based on satellite pings and nothing else. So tell me did they really see it with JORN? Because something tells me they wouldn’t be spending all that money based on a never before used technology to find something????
As for the new evidence found in mosambique, this Blaine guy has been doing a lot of investigating on his own, and on his own dime nonetheless. It appears as though regular folks are stepping up to help solve this mystery because it appears though investigators are few and far between if any who are really working on this case. Certainly not Malaysia, they want it to just disappear just like the plane. Very sad for the families. If it were one of my family members on that plane, I’d be doing a whole lot more than reading the crap put out by most MSM and read between the lines. Therein lies the juxt about what really is going on here. IMO that plane didn’t go south, it either went north like Jeff suggested or it did indeed go west and crashed near the Maldives. Regardless I hope that the families will get closure this year at some point in time.
@MuOne: I am not sure if any photos were taken before the part was moved. I’ll ask Blaine when I can. I know he’s traveling.
@VictorI
Yes, people have an unrealistic picture of what takes place “in the field”, particularly urban dwellers. You make a call because you are there, and are the only one around to make the call. There is not always a “hot line” to dial for advice.
@Dennis: I am working on my next report documenting key unanswered questions – and closely following the search ships.
Fugro Discovery is finally actually breaking new ground. As fate would have it, its first truly new track in 4.5 months happens to be very close to the 7th Arc, and is just a few nmi SW of where the ships were turned around for 13 months on the SSWG’s provably (and proven) faulty assertion that 38.3S was a hard fuel limit.
Since they are finally – after two years – getting around to where the NTSB said on March 15 to START searching, I actually wouldn’t be all that stunned if wreckage turned up near where Disco is as I type.
Under a theory I’ve yet to abandon (to the surprise, I imagine, of those who’ve already laid out for you my zealous inner core), the theatrical elements of this whole sordid saga – including the flaperon’s magical appearance…and disappearance – may be “only” to engineer delay – not denial – of closure for the families. For whatever reason.
AP has a bit of background from Mozambique:
The Mozambican sandbank where a possible piece of a missing Malaysian airliner was found is in waters with treacherous currents and is not normally visited by tourists, a hotel owner said Friday.
Tony Manna, who owns a beachfront hotel in the Mozambican town of Vilankulo, said American adventurer Blaine Gibson was a guest at Manna’s lodge, the Varanda, when he discovered debris that could be a piece of tail section from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared March 8, 2014 with 239 people aboard.
In a telephone interview with The Associated Press, Manna said he connected Gibson with a boat operator nicknamed “Junior,” who took the American to the Paluma sandbank and first spotted the debris there.
The location is “not even an island, it’s a sandbank in a dangerous area” that can only be reached by experienced mariners who know the waters, Manna said. Fishermen sometimes go there to collect rope and other washed up debris that might be useful for their work, he said.
http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/mh370-debris-found-in-waters-with-treacherous-currents-hotel-owner-1.2803750
Its your blog, Jeff and you are perfectly within your rights to call me out on that one though your use of the phrase ” irrational adherence” is pretty indicative isn’t it.
Just that I doubt I am being irrational given I am merely pairing an abrupt termination in communications with actual eyewitness accounts and other related circumstantial evidence, geopolitics included. But I don’t want to belabour the point lest I get kicked out for pushing my flight envelope.
This no great aviation mystery in my mind and many others I know. It doesn’t even constitute a minor mystery for its, for all intent and purposes, a pretty straightforward thing if all the attendant obsufucations are removed and clarity and sincerity are brought into the equation. Yes, sincerity is the operative word for had it been in plentiful supply from the onset, the case of mh370 would have been wrapped up in two days. But I guess geopolitics will always trump the lives of innocents. I pray they find the plane but the practical side of me whispers that will never be the case in the present scheme of things. It may eventually resolved maybe ten twenty thirty or so years down the road if documents are declassified or it may never be solved. Tough luck to the grief stricken for there won’t be closure and my heart goes out to you folks.
Australia probably got the best part of the bargain with all that underwater mapping useful for future hydrocarbon prospecting and stuff. Malaysia’s reputation is gone with the wind and PRC can always play on its unintended victim card. As noted, the search will wind down in June and what lies beyond that is anybody’s guess.
Thank you for allowing my comments. For me it was always an open and shut casebook. Mysteries only come about when facts get obscured for a whole lot of reasons . That will do, I guess. Thanks once again, Jeff.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/77535739/mh370-oil-rig-worker-fired-for-mh370-sighting-still-out-of-work
Johny Begue found a new object, close to the “beach” where he’ve found the flaperon in july.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ccw0sWYW0AAxACw.jpg:large
@Brock
As you will know, the core Bayesian model (which in various iterations has been informing the search area for nearly two years) does not use the fuel as a major input. The DSTG book states that the fuel constraint is applied to the probability distribution function at a late stage but in practice “…analysis of candidate trajectories [allowed by other constraints] has indicated that the majority are feasible”. This is the conservative solution, there is no knowledge of the detailed configuration of the aircraft and hence its precise fuel burn, and the report refers to uncertainties of the fuel use in the early phases of the flight. Also, the model was tested on the validation flights where, presumably, the fuel data was not found to be useful in the achieved accuracy of prediction.
Clearly, some of the candidate trajectories for MH370 will be closest to the fuel constraint and most would be further inside it. If an additional point is added to the published DSTG model that the estimated fuel (however that estimate is made) _must_ be expended at 00:11 then the revised probability distribution function would be rather different as candidate trajectories closest to the fuel constraint would be selected (obviously). These must include trajectories at the southern, furthest distance travelled, end of the already defined area.
There seems to be a reluctance for the search to move to scanning the rather large remaining area inside the arc (as defined by the most recent ATSB report). The area outside the arc and particularly now at the far southern end (which was extended in the later iteration of the DSTG model) is being examined in as much detail as possible with the resources to hand. As you note, the search has today moved just inside the surface arc in the far south.
I am not saying that the search has stopped using the DSTG model, but trying to understand how they might work through the remaining sections of the defined 120000sq.km.
As we have discussed in the past, I don’t subscribe to the idea that the search team are trying to fool anybody.
For info only…
Just going through the 777 parts catalogue I cannot find the Hi-Lok part number (HL1013-6) listed on the aircraft at all.
Although there is an alternate fastener (different supplier, p/n HL13VAZ6-6) used on the hori stab panel in question. As far as my research has gone, there are only two places where this type of -6 fastener is used. One is the hori stab upper leading edge panels, and the second the flaps.
The piece in question aligns with the stab panel, but everything about this new find doesn’t seem quite right.
And yes the stabilisers do have “no step” marked on them, just outside of the fwd and rear spars to (try) stop maintenance personnel damaging the composite panels. As far as I am aware they are normally painted on using a stencil. Sometimes the stencils are locally manufactured so I wouldn’t get too hung up on the details of the font.
Bugsy – The JORN question again. You are right about something I believe, and that is that about two years ago Australia was going hard to deter what were pretty much cashed up economic migrants(asylum seekers) from Iran/Afghanistan/Middle East from piling in here. Boats got intercepted everyday nearly for long periods over a large area and I for one assumed that JORN was buzzing actively for this to occur. No mention was ever made as to how the detections occurred at the time, but “Operation Sovereign Borders” was up and running by the time MH370 went missing. They were mainly looking for boats leaving certain Indonesian locations who normally made a B-line for Christmas Island and nothing really got through once Tony Abbott got elected.
One seasoned defense/foreign affairs writer I know gauged at the time of the disappearance that – Abbott knows were it went – going by his statements and general demeanour. Abbott went on to burn himself slightly with it. Did they get a trace of something and then tally it with what INMARSAT were putting out? They would not have tracked it all the way to the search area because JORN is not a 10,000 km sweep, it’s more of a targeted search light. If it did go that far south, Australia should have seen some debris. I don’t believe it did.
@Bugsy
“One thing that bothers me to this day is that why has NO debris washed up on Australia coasts???? The way the drift models look if the plane did go to the SIO, (which I’m sure it didn’t) why is there no debris there, yet debris shows up on the opposite side of indian ocean near Africa coast?”
if it crashed a bit northern up the arc (as some of us think), you don’t get any debris on australian coast according to drift models
@Matty
‘What does a pilot do once he has it down largely intact? Opt for drowning?’
It most definitely is physically impossible to glide for a prolonged period of time and then ditch successfully. This is explained in Bailey’s article. You don’t have flaps available any longer after the APU runs out of fuel, meaning you can’t slow down either before or after impact. And then we’re talking about Beaufort > 4, probably higher, the further south you get. The sun would just have risen and blind you at the southern end of the planet. The engines would touch down and destroy the fuselage. This means you would have even larger chunks of debris, lift rafts floating and so on, which you expect can be spotted much more easily. Not saying it is impossible there was such an attempt, but it would by no means have worked out in a sense that you could prevent debris from floating on the ocean. Plus it would not have floated northwest.
@Nederland
“It most definitely is physically impossible to glide for a prolonged period of time and then ditch successfully.”
Where do you get that expert wisdom?
@Gysbreght
Part of that is from the latest ATSB report, and there is general agreement on that question in various pilot forums.
Would you argue to the contrary?
Brock,
Thanks for your comments.
The area 25 to 35S is specifically of my interest. Perhaps I would risk to “shrink” it from 25 to 32S. This is where “technical failure” scenarios end up based on BTO & BFO data. I found it quite remarkable that both CSIRO and Deltares PT models are “compatible” with all the 3 locations in question. Curtin University “blip” based on RCS and HA01 also fits this area; specifically around 28-29S.
You are right with regard to coefficients, however you need to remember that there is no accurate wind data for the input into PT models. For example, in my personal experience, hindcast model GDAS tends to underestimate wind speed by somewhat around 10-20%, which would be equivalent of 20-40% increase in drag-related coefficients if one wishes to use GDAS. ECMWF is even less accurate. In other words, even you know accurate coefficients from lab experiment, there is still uncertainty in wind.
I am not sure what you meant by “I recommend you NOT take on blind faith the following sources of “evidence”… Rather, I suggest you perform primary research, and verify first-hand that the “evidence” suggested by them is in fact solid before drawing any conclusions.” What conclusions?
A fundamental problem of this case is that it is a multidisciplinary problem. You cannot investigate all the aspects and verify first-hand information: you life is not long enough. And even if you verify, why would others believe you? In other words, you have to rely on someone’s expert opinion. If you have doubts in all the data/”facts” you listed, then you will be left only with your gut feeling, which is a game of your imagination.
On the other hand, we have a batch of assumptions. Why do you question validity of the data/facts first, but not correctness of the assumptions made?
@Nederland:
“Would you argue to the contrary?”
No, I wouldn’t, because I have done that sufficiently already.
Victor,
Re: “Blaine finds this part on an offshore sandbank. It’s Sunday.”
It seems Feb 27 was Saturday, not Sunday.
Re timeline.
March 2, 9:03 AM (Jeff’s blog time). Victor wrote: “I shared the photos with @GuardedDon who is certain that no parts on a B777 have this construction.”
March 2, 22:56 Singapore time (UTC+8). ChannelNewsAsia: “Malaysian and Australian investigators who have looked at photos of the possible debris, NBC said the piece could be a horizontal stabilizer from a Boeing 777”.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/mobile/asiapacific/debris-found-along/2566582.html?cx_tag=undefined&cid=tg:recos:undefined:standard
March 3, 10:58 am. Victor said: “Fellow IG member @GuardedDon has found documentation that a composite skin with an aluminum honeycomb core is consistent with the skin of the horizontal stabilizer of a B777.”
@Olexandr, what ar you driving at?
And yes, February 27, 2016 was a Saturday.
Littlefoot,
An American lawyer meets next-of-kin, travels to Maldives, Reunion, and then Mozambique. On March 27 he hires a boat to a remote place, and in 20 minutes he finds a debris. He picks it (instead of calling local authorities), conducts some experiments with this debris, and meets with Australian Consul.
Furthermore, Blaine is not willing to share photos of his discovery, and asks IG for not sharing them publicly.
Meanwhile next-of-kin are struggling to submit claims against MAS: the deadline March 8 is approaching (as per ChannelNewsAsia coverage). The only piece of evidence is kept by French/Malay government. MAS was owned by Malay government at the time of accident.
The found piece is unusually clean: no sand in honeycombs, no barnacles, no visible bio-fouling.
What am I driving at?
@Oleksandr: To be clear, on Wednesday he shared the photos with the world.
@Richard: thanks for your insights.
As you will know – and as “Concern #7” of my Jan/’15 report documented – the ATSB’s decision support for determining the deep sea scan’s SW limit proceeded very differently from the reasonable approach you cite. In its Oct/’14 report, the ATSB – acting as a blind conduit for the SSWG, one infers from the fine print – published two Figures which drew a line across the 7th Arc. For the first 13 months of the deep sea search, Fugro was told to treat this magical point as a hard range limit, beyond which they shouldn’t bother searching.
As I proved in “Concern #7”, this point looked to have been dramatically miscalculated, and that their own Figure 2 clearly demonstrated range sufficient to reach 83-point-something degrees east longitude if the FMT occurred at 18:28. I did my best to bring this to the attention of search leaders.
Of course, for 13 months, the fatal flaw was ignored.
And of course, 13 months later, the ATSB quietly eliminated this limit, began searching well beyond it, and stopped talking about anything to do with what used to be as critical as the ISAT data in setting search areas.
If it is not an attempt to fool, then it is a case of criminal incompetence at the top, and criminal apathy everywhere else.
Victor,
Citation from Jeff’s paper: “Gibson asked me to keep his find a secret, explaining, “It is too large and metallic to be easily taken out of the country, and needs to have its provenance documented.”
March 2, 9:55 am. Victor said “Oleksandr: When somebody shares something with me in confidence, I abide by that confidence, unless doing so endangers somebody. End of story.”
I am still struggling to find a reason for this secrecy.
oleksandr
From what I’ve heard, apparently Blaine has been all over that area and islands searching, he didn’t just happen to go there and find it. From what I understand about the barnacles, is that they need depth of a piece of debris to attach and stay on, this piece was small and obviously floating around for awhile and sandblasted. I’m waiting for officials to determine before I dare say its not.