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.
The radome needs to be non-metallic to be transparant to the radar behind it. GuardedDon found that the NO STEP skin of the horizontal stabilizer uses aluminium honeycomb. Non-structural skin parts of the vertical stabilizer would probably be of similar construction.
@Gysbreght Here is a pic of a 777 with damaged nose …see honeycomb construction.
http://tinyurl.com/gtfq4c7
Littlefoot,
I remember about that discussion. However, I think the conclusion “Thus, it is now possible to state with certainty that the flaperon discovered on Reunion Island on July 29, 2015, corresponds to that of flight MH 370.” is not the same as to conclude that the flaperon is a fragment of 9M-MRO. Certainty? Corresponds?
You wrote: “But legally the flaperon is the only material piece of evidence in the case. This cannot be said with any certainty so far about the newly discovered pieces.”
What I suspect is that someone already knowns with certainty that this piece is a fragment of 9M-MRO. Just they did not want to give this piece of evidence to Malaysian investigators before examination is conducted by a third-party. In such a case, regardless final conclusion/formulation of the French/Malaysia investigators, NOK will have the second piece of physical evidence. Does this make sense?
Jinow, Gysbreght,
Could it be a fragment of the fuselage with the word “Malaysia”? Also white and blue.
@Jinow:
Here is a pic of a damaged B777 vertical stabilizer – no honeycomb.
https://chemtrailsplanet.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/mh-17-crash-scene-vertical-stabilizer.jpg
Oleksander, Gysbreght, Ive looked at the pictures with different viewing devices…the colour of the panel below the blue…has indeed a grey appearance to me now..also if you zoom in on some of the scratches on the piece you can see white underneath the top greyer colour. So I don’t think its part of the lettering as the fuselage is white or whiter there. Also Ive looked at the colour of the honeycomb that can be seen in the piece…compared to damaged 777’s …such as SQ391 bird strike and MH17 Stabiliser photos…the honeycomb is a darker red compared to the piece found…however looking at the found piece closely shows a darker red honeycomb in some areas…I think bleaching has occurred. What is happening about this piece…no media take up?
Gysbreght
Honeycomb MH17 – in this pic
http://tinyurl.com/hbv3vfy
I believe the part recently found on La Reunion is part of the “integrally stiffened skin panel” of the “main torque box” of the vertical stabilizer. The materials are a sandwich of outer layers of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) with a Nomex (aramid) honeycomb core. The paint colors are also a close match to the MAS logo on the vertical stabilizer.
So what is the probability that two parts can drift from the crash site on the other side of the Indian Ocean and arrive on the same beach, one in July 2015 and the other in March 2016? Hint: think astronomically small.
Victor,
“So what is the probability that two parts can drift from the crash site on the other side of the Indian Ocean and arrive on the same beach, one in July 2015 and the other in March 2016? Hint: think astronomically small.”
You continue surprising me. Where did you get it that the one piece arrived in July 2015, and the second one in March 2016? Hint: arrival time and discovery time are different.
Just a thought: inner side of this new fragment is obviously affected by bio-fouling, but external side (with blue paint) is not. I haven’t seen any traces of bio-fouling on the debris discovered by Gibson.
@Oleksandr: When somebody says that the probability of a sequence of events is astronomically small, it implies that he or she does not believe it occurred. And I don’t believe that the recent part arrived with the flaperon and remained undiscovered until now.
Picture showing Boeing 777 materials & areas used.
http://tinyurl.com/gtk9l95
The part recently found on La Reunion apparently has no identification marks. So even if it can be established to be from a B777, and the paint can be traced to MAS, it still cannot be linked convincingly to MH370.
Victor,
So you don’t believe that the recent part arrived earlier? Or you don’t believe that it was discovered only now? Or you don’t believe that this fragment has anything to do with mh370?
@Gysbreght: True. This could be just another in a series of amazing coincidences.
Does it not seem odd that two people that have been previous associated with MH370 find debris possibly linked to MH370 within days of each other after nothing was found over an interval of 8 months, and the finds occur within days prior to the release of the next FI? And neither of the two recent finds hosts marine life expected for a part in the water for 2 years, despite a honeycomb core that is ideal for habitation?
@VictorI:
Don’t leave us in suspense. What is your theory that explains this oddity?
@Olexandr, I think you’re splitting hairs now. The French prosecutor engaged in legal lingo in order to tell us, that they consider the flaperon to have come from mh370. That’s as close as it gets and means the flaperon can be legally introduced as a piece of evidence – and that was the main point we were arguing about.
Of course you can choose to disbelieve the French prosecutor. But I see atm no factual reason for doing so. Even in a scenario where the flaperon was planted I think it’s more likely that the planters used a part of the missing plane rather than procuring a flaperon from another B777 and faking the serial number – either by altering it inside the flap or by altering the records of the Spanish subcontractor. The second possibility seems to be less unlikely than the first.
It’s not totally impossible that this might’ve happened but right now I don’t see any known facts or plausible scenarios pointing into that direction.
@VictorI
My own opinion is grounded in two components:
1> There is a lot of debris out there (an opinion I have expressed before).
2> Very few informed people are looking for the debris. (also an opinion expressed before).
I think most of us with an internet connection fail to realize how remote and primitive the area likely to receive debris actually is. I can state with confidence that if I asked my ranch neighbors (who have TV, newspapers, and internet) about MH370, the vast majority would not know what I was talking about.
I think the reality is that the people who might find debris and associate it with the aircraft fit the profile of the people who found the recent debris.
While I agree the timing of the finds and the condition of the finds is suspicious, my suspicion is somewhat tempered by the above.
@DennisW: Yes, you are espousing the conventional theory about why Blaine and Johny were able to find the parts.
But how do you explain the relatively good condition of the parts and the lack of habitation of marine organisms, especially in the honeycomb core?
An archive of pictures and a video of the “No Step” part (as Blaine likes to call it) can be found here at Duncan Steel’s site:
http://www.duncansteel.com/archives/2251
@VicorI
I am a conventional kind of guy. 🙂 You don’t get to retire as a VP by being weird.
I have no explanation for the condition of the parts. Not my bag really.
I do walk the beach often near my beach house, and also do a fair amount of ocean kayak camping. When I survey pictures I have taken during such activities I can find no sign of marine life or algae stains on material that has been on the beach for any length of time. My assumption is that the marine life is scavenged by other animals, and the stains are rapidly bleached out by the action of waves and sunlight. I have never seen barnacles clinging to a piece of driftwood or other material that has been out of the water for any length of time.
I realize that the above statements are anecdotal, but so are statements expressing the belief that the recent debris finds do not correspond to what they should look like.
Sorry to take so long to say I don’t know the answer to your question.
@DennisW: We do have the flaperon to compare with.
@VictorI
After seeing the flaperon full of barnacles people now expect all other washed out parts to have those too.
But it doesn’t have to be so.
@Olexandr, maybe we should stop our argument re: legal technicalities here. We disagree. But we share the suspicion that something about Blaine’s and possibly also Johnny Beque’s discoveries doesn’t add up for many fairly obvious reasons. Maybe , we should focus on that.
@Dennis, I agree with you that looking for something definitely increases the chances of actually finding what you’re looking for. No argument about that.
What makes the discoveries of the recent debris suspicious is the timing and the unlikely pristine condition of the debris. I also find it very suspicious that Johnny Beque possibly found exactly the same kind of debris as Blaine Gibson – horizontal vs vertical stabilizer. And both discoveries were made within the same week – just before the second anniversary of mh370′ vanishing act.
There are just too many coincidences for this being credible. I’m not accusing Johnny Beque and Blain Gibson of any shenanigans. You can compare them to archeologists who are looking for something very specific. But archeologists are often the target of hoaxes or planted fakes – exactly because it is known what they are looking for.
@VictorI
We have no way to know the time history of the respective parts relative to water immersion. I am not disagreeing with you so much as playing the role of devil’s advocate. I just think it is hard to draw conclusions relative to the cosmetic condition of parts.
I do believe I am correct relative to who found the parts and the relative abundance of debris. I think if you and I strolled the beaches of East Africa we would find a lot of debris. JMO.
@DennisW: With what we know, I don’t expect any of us will be able to “prove” anything. I am simply commenting on what I think the evidence may suggest. Trust me, I fully expect many will come to much different conclusions.
@Dennis, if we would comb systematically the beaches of East Africa, we might find mh370 debris eventually – if the plane crashed indeed into the IO. But Blaine found his piece on hid first outing after 20 minutes! Basically the first substantial piece of debris the captain laid eyes on was a piece from the Holy Grail -c’mon! And three days later Johnny Beque finds a piece from the same part of the Grail! It’s simply not credible. And appearances do matter! The pictures are good enough for some informed judgement. And while differences between the new pieces and the flaperon are to be expected, this doesn’t explain the scarcety of marine lifeforms in the honeycombs and the shiny white paint -as if it was wiped clean!
On one of the photographs Johny Begue holds his find against a white sheet of paper with a print of a MAS airplane on it. Difficult to avoid the notion that white is white and grey is grey on that photo.
At times like this I very much wish I could borrow a boat, and spend about a month just cruising along the African shore looking for bits of the plane. If it’s this easy for Blaine to find a bit, my conclusion is that not enough people are looking.
Thank you for this clear and sane discussion, it’s hard to find on the internet at present.
I wonder whether since finding this part, Blaine has gone back out to the same spot and kept looking?
That’s the second thing I’d have done, time allowing.
Sorry for my vicarious interest.
No, he spent another hour looking around, then took the part to the authorities and flew to Malaysia for the second-anniversary commemoration in Kuala Lumpur.
@Susie, No, he spent another hour looking around, then took the part to the authorities and flew to Malaysia for the second-anniversary commemoration in Kuala Lumpur.
@littlefoot
it seems you are extending the Indiana Jones approach… meanwhile, RT strikes back again through some other journalist; I simply seeked to know our enemy there more than year ago, but didnt found any finally; honestly, its unconventional, so weird guys care, and anybody can make mistakes; thats no problem
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/334649-mh17-conspiracy-theories-putin/
Thanks Jeff, it sounds as though time didn’t really allow then!
It doesn’t sound as though anyone else is looking in this area at all.
There was a post right at the start of the major thread on the PPRuNe, in which someone (I don’t remember who) seemed very confident that debris would make its way to the W. African coast before too long.
Seems they had it.
@Wazir Roslan:
I prefer spoof theories, and an intact plane in Kazakhstan/China/Somalia would be utterly fascinating, one of the biggest twists you could ever imagine.
But if there is a multinational silence (and there appears to be), then I agree with you, Occam’s Razor would sadly point to one thing – a major diplomatic incident like you suggest.
The fallout from the US accidently shooting down an airliner (directly or indirectly) with 152 Chinese on board would be absolutely immense. Without doubt, it would be in absolutely everyone’s interests – the US, China, Malaysia, Australia, Thailand, even Russia, to cover it up.
But Jeff is also right. The strange coincidence of MH17 may point to something more sinister. A sort of ‘gentle’ warning shot, if you like. Was MAS about to spill the beans…?
Littlefoot,
Do you have any other explanation? I will not insist on my version, especially given that what I suspect does not add any value to the search.
It is also interesting to note that Mr Gibson also said he did not think there was any more debris:
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/mobile/asiapacific/us-man-tells-how-he-found/2570388.html
On Saturday he made a discovery. On Tuesday he was heading to Maputo. He needed to arrange his meeting with the consul and with the head of Mozambique’s Civil Aviation Institute, as well as to arrange his transportation. Apparently he was not planning to return back to resume search. Instead he was heading to Malaysia. He also had to spend some time to conduct buoyancy-related experiments. This virtually leaves him one day of so. So how can he be sure there was no more debris?
@Sajid
I’m not there (spoof explanation) yet. I attribute the “multinational silence” to typical diplomatic courtesy. Several US news outlets have quoted an unnamed US official as declaring the Blaine find came from a 777 (after Malaysia said it was probably from a 777).
I am going to let things unfold (or unravel as the case may be) at their own pace for now.
Susie,
“I wonder whether since finding this part, Blaine has gone back out to the same spot and kept looking?”
Though Jeff already answered your question, I would suggest you to read the article, link to which I posted above. ChannelNewsAsia has a relatively good coverage of this event.
@littlefoot
Would you even suspect the shoes you’re wearing of foul play ? Come on, why all this paranoia ? So what if Blaine found some debris after just 20 minutes presence at the Mozambican coast ? Judging by the sizes of the debris (Blaine,Begue) it had to be an incredibly violent impact so that means alot of debris is now resting on the Eastern African coasts.
Actually the fact that Blaine found a piece of debris after 20 minutes is an embarassment (Now please think why).
StevanG said : ”After seeing the flaperon full of barnacles people now expect all other washed out parts to have those too.
But it doesn’t have to be so.”
Well said.
@Sajid UK – maybe mh17 was a warning shot to Malaysia in retaliation of using the SIO as cover but being slow in making “amends”. Once mh17 was shot it did give Malaysia certain urgency to resolve that “issue”.
@Littlefoot
you said:
“You can compare them to archeologists who are looking for something very specific. But archeologists are often the target of hoaxes or planted fakes – exactly because it is known what they are looking for.”
Nothing quite compares to archeologists.
Archeologist are targeted because they are the most gullible and prone to confirmation bias of any group of people who ever managed to secure a degree. It takes the back of a very small envelop to show that man and apes could not share a common ancestor based on the DNA differences (small as they are) and the known rate of mutation. I have this argument all the time with a couple of archeologist friends who like to play in the dirt (they actually started as GPS customers). I am an atheist, BTW, so my conclusion (that humans did not come from that direction) is based on pretty simple math, not on any alternative belief systems.
I don’t think the big bang ever happened either. I put postulating dark matter (which has escaped detection for some 50+ years now) to make the math work, as stretching far beyond postulating an MH370 spoof.
Sorry for the sidebar.
Please, respectfully, can we concentrate on MH370 and leave the very probably unrelated MH17 to rest in peace?
I was enjoying reading some good evidence based discussion away from the guesswork and conspiracy talk.
I just want to find this one. Wherever it is and however it got there – finding it is the important thing.
Isn’t it?
Gysbregt said, “On one of the photographs Johny Begue holds his find against a white sheet of paper with a print of a MAS airplane on it. Difficult to avoid the notion that white is white and grey is grey on that photo.”
Thank you and noted.
In this video, Blaine Gibson is questioned whether he can be trusted. Also, he explains why he initially kept his discovery quiet.
https://www.facebook.com/ChannelNewsAsia/videos/1023391901016820/
IR1907,
“So what if Blaine found some debris after just 20 minutes presence at the Mozambican coast ?”
Think again… No, better read again.
An American lawyer meets with NOK, goes to Maldives, then to Reunion, then to Mozambique, then back to Malaysia. During his journey, he travels to a remote place in Mozambique, finds what he was looking for in just 20 minutes. He shares photographs with some experts, but asks these experts not to release them to the public. In 2 days (by a chance it was weekend) he meets with local authorities together with the Australian Consul to Mozambique. Of course Consul had nothing to do and was available to meet Blain any time. Blaine wants the fragment to be shipped to Australia, despite formally it is supposed to be shipped to Malaysia. And he has no apparent interest in returning back to continue the search for the debris. And all this “coincidently” happens just a week before 2-year anniversary.
Is it so difficult to add 2+2? What is this “show” about?
@falken
Consider the unworthy source. That was written by the same guy who wrote this headlined piece;
911 – reasons why 9/11 was (probably) an inside job
By Robert Bridge, RT Russia Today RT.com
@Wazir Roslan – VivtorI, Gysbreght, Dr. Ulich among others have calculated that there was sufficient fuel to reach the current search area. If you add the possibility of step cruise by a conscious pilot, the maximum range would have been even further.
@mm33vv
Your dropbox image #1 (the 15 metre object) – do you have the coordinates for this object, please?
Many thanks.
Victor,
After watching interview with Gibson, I became even more confident that what I think is correct. Well, he is doing the right thing, though by not very legitimate methods. Anyhow I think all this stuff is not directly relevant to what has actually happened to MH370.