After a Boeing 737 operating as Flydubai Flight 981 crashed in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don Saturday, preliminary accounts suggested that the plane had clipped a wing or struck the ground with its tail while attempting to land in stormy weather. Indeed, in a story published later that day, RT.com quoted Rostov region governor Vasily Golubev as saying, “The plane was descending and then suddenly dived down. Experts say this was an air pocket that dragged the plane to the left of the runway center. And the plane debris were scattered to the left as well.” Obviously, there is no such thing as an “air pocket.” But it makes intuitive sense that a plane attempting to land in high, gusty winds might succumb to shear at low altitude and low airspeed as it nears touchdown. But this, it appears, is not what happened at all. Frequent contributor Victor Iannello has created a graphic based on ADS-B data transmitted by the plane during its final moments. What it shows is that the plane had descended to land, then aborted the landing and climbed, accelerating as it went. It had already gained 3000 feet altitude and reached a speed of 200 knots when it suddenly plummeted from the sky. Here’s the data in graph form:
This security-camera footage offers a visual sense of what happened:
Mar19 #Rostov, #footage of FZ981 crash, view from Aleksandrovka micro-ds @Eisenhoden pic.twitter.com/TqIdvOmMys
— English Lugansk (@loogunda) March 21, 2016
What happened? Authorities on the scene have found the black boxes and hopefully will have answers soon. For the time being, some have speculated that the plane encountered severe windshear or a microburst, causing it to stall and plummet. But the plane’s descent was nose-down at high speed, so the pilot should have been able to at least attempt to pull up. Personally, I’m reminded of AA587, which crashed in 2001 on takeoff from Long Island after the pilot flying applied to much rudder after encountering wake turbulence from the plane ahead of him on climbout, causing the vertical stabilizer to rip off; the plane dived nearly vertically into the ground. If something similar happened here, parts of the tail should be found at some distance from the main wreckage. Another case that may offer parallels was Kenya Airways Flight 507, which crashed in 2007 while on climbout in bad weather. The pilot lost situational awareness while the autopilot was only partially engaged, the plane entered into an increasingly steep bank, and plunged into the ground. What’s different in the present case is that the plane impacted right on the runway it had been trying to climb away from, implying that it stayed on the same heading the whole time. (That is to say, it hadn’t gone into a roll.) Another unusual aspect of the case was the fact that the pilots had been holding for two hours before making a second landing attempt. I asked Phil Derner, an aircraft dispatcher and aviation expert, for his take. He replied:
For me, as a dispatcher, 1 hour is my max to let an aircraft of mine hold. It’s just a waste of gas; might as well divert and wait for conditions to improve. Shit, even fitting an additional 2 hours of holding fuel to a flight is tough as it is, and then to burn it away in a hold? Also, I only let my flights sit in a holding pattern if I think they WILL get it. If conditions don’t look to be improving right away, I won’t even have them hold…I divert and would rather have them wait it out on the ground. It saves gas, and is safer on the ground. But then again, I don’t know all of the conditions they were facing, what conditions were at their alternate airports, etc. There are so many variables and we just don’t have a lot of info, so it’s tough to determine or judge. But 2 hours….damn.
Meanwhile, on an unrelated topic, I might as well put up a picture of the latest piece of aircraft debris, this one found on a beach in South Africa. Not many details forthcoming yet, but it’s worth noting that MH370 was equipped with two Rolls-Royce Trent 800 engines. 
A quick glance at there not-very-high-res images suggests that the piece is roughly similar in appearance to the two pieces recently found in Mozambique, though perhaps somewhat more discolored/weathered. Apparently the piece is on its way to Malaysia.
UPDATE: Here’s another picture that @Susie provided a link to in the comments section:
@Victor
The graphics themselves “invite” an interpretation. We are not looking at tabular data that needs any further processing. The conclusion literally “leaps” out at you. One would have to believe that three separate organizations would conspire to mislead.
If you want to discard the results of reputable scientific organizations you can certainly do that, but the text accompanying these graphics contains little in the way of disclaimers. You almost have to be in a state of denial to reject the ensemble of data.
For the convenience of the bloggers here I have simply posted some data graphics without any further explanation. I don’t think it is needed.
Does it “prove” the current search area is false – no, and I am not claiming that it does. Does it “support” the current search area. I don’t see how you can come to that conclusion which has been regurgitated endlessly by the ATSB, and to a lesser extent by the IG.
http://tmex1.blogspot.com
@ Dennis: if you were correct, there should be more debris.
@Warren P
I apologize for the lack of debris, and not understanding what that means.
As far as the graphics go, they are not mine. I make no claims to any oceanographic pedigree. I am only the messenger here.
Dennis,
Let me explain again how a drift model works. A classic approach is based on the Lagrangian particle tracking technique. Motion of each individual particle is affected by two components: deterministic and stochastic. Deterministic component is comprised of the forcing by current, wind and waves (sometimes by current and wind only, or even current only). The purpose of stochastic component is to simulate dispersion – a random process similar to Brownian motion. Often it is described by so called “random walking” technique. In addition, characteristics of individual particles may vary to describe certain processes such as evaporation of oil in oil spill models. Average characteristics/probabilities are derived based on tracking of a large number of particles and averaging over unit area.
Vortices, confluence of oceanic streams, and turbulence are the factors, which make reverse drift models inapplicable for this case. Yes, you can change t into -t at deterministic terms. But what are you going to do with the stochastic component? If you apply forward and then backward procedures, you will not get original location for an individual particle unless you set stochastic component to zero.
Imagine a simple example: confluence of two rivers. By applying a forward drift study in intelligent way you will always be able to find two solutions. What will you get by applying reverse drift study? The answer depends on. If dispersion is small in your model, you may end up with one solution only. If large – with up to three fictitious solutions, one of which is downstream.
@Oleksandr
Everyone knows that water does not flow uphill. In your simple example, I would anticipate two solutions with distinct probabilities depending largely on the flow rates of the convergent streams. This is not rocket science.
If you want to reject the models, it will not hurt my feelings at all. It would not hurt my feelings even if they were my models. My assumption is that the people who prepared the models were qualified to do so, and understand perfectly well everything you point out above (to the extent that it is correct).
@DennisW: What I am saying is that I don’t know whether you can reasonably expect a “co-mingling” (as Brock says) of results from forward and reverse drift calculations. Now if there is no intersection of paths, that is a problem. But that isn’t what I am seeing. I am not saying that the ATSB’s interpretation is correct because as I said, I think the models are too imprecise to say anything definitively. I only point out that it is not easy to correctly interpret reverse drift studies by looking at a graph and ranking the probability of starting points because of the effect I mentioned above. (Let’s say that in my example, the 70% starting point represents near Java and the 5% represents 38S latitude.) At least, it is not easy for me to interpret, but I claim no expertise. I am happy to yield to those smarter than me, but there seems to be a divergence of opinion.
Dennis,
What does CSIRO compare in the plot you linked, and what does their results tell you?
“As with the flaperon, therefore, we conclude that while the location of this finding [i.e., “NO STEP”] does not cast doubt on the ATSB’s choice of search area (based on the Inmarsat handshakes), it can not provide particularly strong support for it either, because the trajectories of drifting items are so chaotic.”
http://www.marine.csiro.au/~griffin/MH370/
@Oleksandr
My interpretation of the CSIRO model, and the other models as well, is that the graphics represent the ensemble of paths starting at Reunion Island and propagating those paths backwards to an ensemble of starting points.
Dennis,
No. Ensemble of ending points, corresponding to negated deterministic forcing; not starting points. Starting points are at Reunion – exactly as you wrote.
Dennis,
Maybe this helps. If CSIRO starts reverse drift at Mosselbay (SA), would they end up in the same area?
@Oleksandr
OK, ending points relative to the evolution of the backwards paths is correct as you say.
@Brock, I fully agree with you: if eventually wreckage gets found in the SIO, this is by no means a falsification of the planted-evidence theory. I fully understand those who wail: “But, but… no falsification is possible, that’s pseudo-science!” But since the search for mh370 isn’t a scientific experiment which is designed in a way that makes cleancut verification/falsification possible, these arguments don’t apply here IMO. There are so many unknowns and potential loopholes that this kind of approach is simply not possible. We can’t control all parameters tightly enough. We can’t even be sure that we know all parameters. If there is the slightest possibility that some parameters are manipulated malevolently the words verification and falsification become meaningless anyway. It’s as if an experiment is conducted and manipulated by a dishonest scientist. Or the honest scientist gets sabotaged by a rival. Take your pick. Unfortunately we can’t exclude that this happens in connection with the search for the plane. The recently discovered highly problematic debris raises many red flags that we are looking at an ongoing case where the manipulations haven’t ceased, yet.
If the purists cry that this point of view isn’t strictly scientific – so be it. This isn’t about winning the Nobel Prize or the Fields Medal. The goal of this messy investigation is to find the plane – or at least find out what really happened.
It’s quite possible that it never will get fully cleared up.Especially if this is more a case for the secret service than for a sonar tow-fish.
@Oleksandr
Relative to Mosselbay, I would expect similar results. Obviously there is, as you say, a significant stochastic component to any model of this type. However, I would expect the “cloud” of paths to generally go to an area dominated by a Northern displacement relative to the current search area in the SIO.
Maybe the modelers will oblige us if the other debris finds are confirmed or assigned a very high probability.
I should add, that, while the discovery of wreckage in the SIO doesn’t exclude planted evidence, the failure to find the wreckage in the SIO on the other hand doesn’t prove conclusively that the plane isn’t down there somewhere.
@Oleksandr
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/details.cgi?aid=3827
Looks like a lot of vortices in oceanic flow. Is this related to turbulence / how do you deal with them in reverse drift analysis?
@Warren: “What is identifiable to an expert biologist—armed with microscope and DNA sequencer who has the item in question right in front of her–will at least half the time not be identifiable to laymen looking only at photos posted on the internet.”
This may in fact be true—I am not a marine biologist—but I do have over fifty years of experience beachcombing along the west coast of the United States, from Alaska to San Diego, including Hawaii (No, I am not a “professional” beachcomber, I just have always lived near or regularly visited many of these beaches and enjoy walking on them.), and I find what Jeff calls the “virginal” appearance of the honeycomb material inside the debris parts, especially in the close-up photos, to be very inconsistent with the appearance of anything I have ever seen washed-up on a beach, and I have seen a lot. Just my observation, not claiming to be scientific.
On a somewhat different note, for those of you who saw my English translation of the recent interview (in French) with Florence de Changy (posted March 22, 2016 at 2:05 AM under the “Bioforensic Analysis of Suspected MH370 Debris Updated x2” section of this site), I thought that Florence made a good point and asked good questions about the French lack of transparency regarding the flaperon. If they are convinced, as they said they were, that the flaperon did indeed come from MH370, then why have they thus far not released a full and detailed report about it? Are they still conducting scientific tests after all this time? Do they have lingering doubts or questions which they hope to answer eventually?
@ JDB: Probably they figure that the flaperon does not point to mechanical failure; in which case they figure there is no point in finding the aircraft….
IMHO YMMV…
@Warren Platts
Thanks for the comment. I think we can agree that the number of facts in this case (short of an actual discovery of the sea-floor wreckage) will never be enough to falsify any theory, at least to the satisfaction of the majority.
Nice to see the namecheck for my neighbouring village of Ockham, Surrey, UK and its famous son, William. I drove past this afternoon on the way into Guildford.
RetdF4 – So far all accessible/removable pieces of plane – stenciled or with decals. When will the strangeness end?
Dennis – I was thinking about internal plane debris also last few days and I guess a lot of it is just not as durable, but we have no indication at present that the hull is fragmented apart from a BFO analysis.
Oleksandr – I can’t get the towelette into the same category as the flaperon. There is a decent sized Malaysian community here in Perth and MAS planes would come here daily and Cervantes is a tourist town with an ancient petrified forest sticking up out of the sand dunes(Pinnacles) and many people make the drive. It’s difficult to elevate the towelette beyond the rubbish bin – IMHO. Every day in Perth scores of these towelettes will arrive by air.
Carla – Combustible suitcases on Reunion? It’s a holiday destination, and the piece shows up on day one of a French holiday period. I see discarded stolen cases with contents spewed all around on occasion in my wandering around the Perth hills researching life here during the timber milling period of the 1890’s when there were no roads. Suitcases go missing, but do they float for two years? Two weeks ok, but it sounds like some turn up – IMHO.
Was it an aircraft seat, or on reflection ‘might have’ been one? Such an item would have been a barnacle limousine so pity no photo’s, that’s if it floated, and for 14 months? If a solitary seat and not a row of them maybe the cabin needed to really disintegrate at some point? With MH17 we saw banks of seats. As I recall it the man’s job was to collect and burn rubbish meaning it’s an issue there. Days later people were handing in anything from kettles to bits of wood as the minds fired up, and that’s what happened here too for info. Heaps of stuff got handed over. Suitcase in this case looks like rubbish, for me anyway but my antennae spin like mad when I see the hacking exploits you linked to. Remember that before such people present to explain and present such vulnerabilities bad guys are onto it.
People have questioned whether lifejackets will survive a two meander around the IO, but I’d rate that survivability well ahead of a case or a seat. If he’s referring to simply a cushion then I doubt it altogether.
@Matty, maybe we won’t see any more stencilled debris. Now, that we have duly noted and appreciated this nice touch, our hypothetical planters will move on 😉
@JDB
I too have spent a fair amount of time at the beach in the same areas as you. Our impressions differ, but that is not the point. Your observations, my observations, and anyone else’s observations are in the anecdotal category. The debris is in the hands of people qualified to examine it. I suggest we let them do so, and wait for the results.
I am surprised so many people have expressed strong opinions relative to the biofouling. Why? That behavior is called over-positioning yourself which is never a recommended strategy when real data is forthcoming.
@Jeff, @Richard: excellent discussion. One quibble: anyone with a motive to plant electronic and shoreline evidence is very likely to have a strong motive to plant deep sea evidence.
I’m not arguing one way or another; I’m just pointing out that deep-sea wreckage is as easy to plant as shoreline debris – and is, in fact, a predicted component of any of a variety of cover-up scenarios. I mean, what would be the point of spending thousands – perhaps millions – cultivating a false theory, unless you’re prepared to plant a false payoff?
With respect to the BTO data, the world is currently split into two camps: trusting, and skeptical. People will cross from skeptical to trusting when the unnamed members of the SSWG begin to behave in a trustworthy manner, and conduct their operation with transparency – not when they lob new “evidence” at us from the shadows, and demand that we trust it.
From the Australian:
The suspected suicide of a Qantas pilot who flew a private plane into the ocean at 200km/h has sparked debate about airline screening processes, with a leading depression expert saying the system is not foolproof.
While the circumstances surrounding first officer Paul Whyte’s actions on Monday are unknown, air traffic control monitored the single-engine aircraft he had hired for the day from the Northern Rivers Aero Club in Lismore before it crashed into the ocean about 11km northeast of Byron Bay. Police have been unable to recover the Lismore man’s body or the wreckage, but said there were no suspicious circumstances.
The incident comes a year after 27-year-old Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz locked his captain out of the cockpit of an Airbus A320 during a flight from Barcelona to Dusseldorf and flew into the French Alps, killing all 150 people. In a report released this month, investigators said the remains of Lubitz — who had a history of psychological issues — contained traces of antidepressants.
Pilot suicide is also a theory in the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 two years ago.
The head of the psychiatry school at the University of NSW, Philip Mitchell, a professorial fellow at the Black Dog Institute, said there was a difference between pilots who took down their plane and those who took hundreds with them.
“In general, when people are depressed … they only take their own life. When there’s the taking of a whole plane with passengers involved, it just doesn’t fit the usual pattern,” Professor Mitchell said.
In Australia, pilots of passenger planes must hold a Civil Aviation Safety Authority medical certificate that has to be renewed annually and includes psychological testing.
CASA requires pilots to declare any significant changes in their mental health. Anyone with a history of psychosis, alcoholism, drug dependence, personality disorder or mental abnormality is forbidden to fly.
Professor Mitchell, who has done a number of pilot reviews for CASA, said its current honesty system, “clearly implies there needs to be a frankness on behalf of the pilot”.
“My experience is most pilots are pretty frank about those things,” he said.
“The issue is how often people are reviewed and the adequacy of that — you can never have a completely foolproof system.”
@Matty, wow! Did the Quantas pilot decide to do a Lubitz at the time of the first GermanWings anniversary? That’s spooky. At least he had the good sense not to become a murderer.
The apparent lack of biofouling on the latest MH370 debris to be discovered off the coast of Africa does pose a challenge to the controlled ditching scenario in the SIO.
However, there could be a plausible explanation.
It has been posited that the plane was flown till fuel exhaustion, and ditched with input controls from the perpetrators.
What if the perps ditched the plane in a predetermined area where a FLOATING SELF-INFLATING BOOM was deployed? This solves several problems for the SIO end-of-flight scenario.
– lack of debris, because debris was corralled and collected
– ensure the sinking of the fuselage
– extract the perpetrators from the ditched aircraft
– release pieces of debris at convenient times and locations to support the mainstream theory of an uncontrolled crash in the SIO
Deploying the self-inflating booms is a relatively easy task, and can be accomplished by a very small crew. These can be compactly stored, and could also be air-dropped into the crash zone.
http://www.versatech.com/zooom-boom.php
Here’s a video on youtube of the same.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18okhxV_eAQ
@Matty
Malaysia played Abbot like a violin. Chester is simply doing damage control, and not tossing his predecessors under the bus (which is certainly what I would do).
No matter. $100M USD is a small part of the Aussie GDP (even a much smaller part of the California GDP). Still, there is a principle involved called accountability.
“The Quiet One
9 hours ago
Just one slight problem. The photo shows the RR logo on a white coloured fragment, yet the engines on the plane that disappeared were of a light gray colour. Therefore doubtful that the piece is from MH370.”
http://news.sky.com/story/1666872/has-mh370-debris-washed-up-in-south-africa
Dennis – Australia was always implicated by the ISAT data and both Inmarsat and the govt here thought it would be resolved quickly, as you would in the case of a missing 777 in this day and age. Annoying smartass me was touting then that they wouldn’t find it and that Inmarsat’s advertising gold would turn to dust without a pretty quick result. They melted off, and so did Abbott leaving ATSB with the baby. No one imagined we would be here still doing this. Wouldn’t it be bizarre indeed if it(MH370) wasn’t even in Australia’s area of responsibility??
Abbott was happy to be there but like everyone else he thought it would get wrapped up in weeks. This was unthinkable. Like most I have a lot of respect for someone like ALSM and I’m sure it’s unrequited, but his remark – “lets just find the plane first, then grade the conspiracy theories, one at a time” – is now a long time ago. They have tossed the kitchen sink at this data and the govt here was always intent on doing it’s INTL duty – with, they would have been told, was the reasonable expectation of an eventual triumph.
Been some frayed tempers along the way, and some frustration too – but nothing as bad as this. For a bit of light relief at Easter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uV-I0S28ogc
@Matty,
‘So far all accessible/removable pieces of plane – stenciled or with decals. When will the strangeness end?’
They’re also the sort of pieces most likely to detach, or detach first, in a scenario where a plane hits the water and doesn’t disintegrate entirely.
So bearing that in mind, I don’t think it’s particularly strange. You could theoretically lose all these bits and still have a mainly intact fuselage somewhere on the sea floor.
@Trond
Grey fades to white after a few months at sea, pretty obvious when you think about it.
Must have come from the RH engine when the pilot ditched. All the other pieces recovered so far, came from the RH side, proves to me they must be genuine. If ever there was a smoking gun, this pieces are it!
BTW everybody, the French are holding on to the flaperon because it’t clear evidence of foul play, ie a pre-meditated act. French nationals were on board, the French opened a criminal investigation, this is evidence. They are going to take the matter up with the Malaysians as soon as the search is called off. The French are incensed with the Malaysians for not taking the foul play issue seriously.
@Matty
Thank you for your fascinating insights into Australian political life. Call me politically naive if you like, but I was sorry to Tony get pushed out like that. Any priminister who can down a schooner of beer in 7 seconds, gets my vote.
All we have in the UK are faceless men in grey suits who would rather fiddle their expenses than run the country.
Susie – I suppose it depends on exactly where on the sea floor it is? Much further up the arc ok, but down there harder to envisage just a few bits flying off. I reckon the cargo weight going forward would create some stress in anything other than a graceful Hudson glide? The grade of the swell only has to catch a wing tip. I notice nearly everyone has ditched the Mach-1 entry?
ROB – Knifing PM’s mid term shouldn’t be allowed in my book, the electoral cycle should be allowed to run it’s course. You may remember Bob Hawke, Australian PM from 1983-91. He set a world drinking record by downing 2.5 pints(yard glass) in 11 seconds while studying at Oxford. He carried on after that too.
@Everyone
To clarify a few points:
The pilot glided another 100 miles after the fuel ran out, not to prolong the agony but to put some distance between him and the place that he’d fooled everyone into thinking he must have come down. This guy had worked out everything very carefully in advance, which is why they are still looking for him? Comprendez Vous?
When you call it suicide you are deflecting the focus away from the real motive, ie political sabotage. And how can you have a motiveless hypothesis? That’s like searching with one hand tied behind your back, which incidentially is why the ATSB search is going to fail.
No seat cushions or life jackets in Mozambique? How can you expect a seat cushion or a suitcase to survive such a journey anyway? It beggars belief to even consider such a thing.
You have been analysing the parts from a distance, from tourists’ photographs. Is that scientific? Hardly. The Gibson part is clearly in a bad state, and delaninated. How do you think the mischief makers managed to do that, or even think about doing that.
Yet when the real experts inspect the bits laid out in front of them, and say “highly likely came from MH370” you refuse to believe it?
There is a society you can join. It’s called The Flat Earth Society.
End of rant
@Matty
I agree, you’ve had some great characters as politicians. My hero is Les Patterson.
Typical Les Patterson joke: how do you hide something from a Pom? answer, put it under a bar of soap! Now that’s funny.
@Brock
I think you are making my point. When a complex conspiracy based theory involving planting of shore debris, the SSWG and potential faking of sea-floor debris (your points, I believe) is allowed as a solution to the problem, then it can explain all data, current and future. I use conspiracy theory in the modern sense of an ongoing plot between powerful groups intended to mislead and confuse the wider public.
If discovery of some sea-floor remains of MH370 would not, for you, be a disproof of this theory, then what potential observation/discovery would be? Sea-floor discovery of the main section of the wreck? Read-out of the black-boxes? Or would you not trust that data either? I am not being sarcastic; I am interested in the reply. The wider perception of this situation is part of its interest.
@ROB
“Grey fades to white after a few months at sea, pretty obvious when you think about it.”
then why didnt the black fade to grey on the same piece?
and why hasnt the other white pieces faded?
this rr piece is not from mh370.
#Trond
Simple, the black has faded. If you put it up against a new badge, you would see what I mean.
The other parts have indeed faded. They started off as light grey, at least the flap fairing did. They now look as if they have been bleached, which is hardly a surprise
Niels,
“Is this related to turbulence / how do you deal with them in reverse drift analysis?”
As one of my professors taught us: “what is the turbulence? It is remaining pieces of vortices”. The eddies you see in MITgcm output (it is a good model btw) are already resolved by the numerical model, i.e. they are deterministic. However, there many more smaller eddies not resolved by the model. Larger eddies contribute to generation of smaller eddies, and sub-grid mixing as a result, which is taken into account as a stochastic process. In theory you can increase numerical resolution so that turbulent exchange will be directly modelled. But practically this is not possible due to limited computational resources. The higher resolution is, the more vortices of smaller scale can be directly modelled.
In the reverse drift analysis time integration is performed backward: dt -> -dt. However, the presence of stochastic component, which depends on turbulence, may result in a particle ‘jumping’ from one streamline to another one, from one vortex to another vortex. So even minor local turbulent diffusion can result in particles being carried by flow to different locations as they enter different streamlines. This is equally applicable to forward and backward models.
In summary there is no difference between forward and inverse drift models, except negated input forcing.
But I should note that even resolved vortices pose a problem in “our case” due to bifurcation. Imagine a pair of vortices, and a particle on a streamline just in the mid between them. Where will it flow? It is a random process. If you reverse time, you will again have a bifurcation point, and it will again be a random choice which streamline the particle will follow in backward direction. As a result, even if you assume zero turbulence, a backward step following a forward step may not result in a particle coming to its original location.
Sorry if my explanation is fuzzy; a single illustration would be much better.
Dennis,
“Relative to Mosselbay, I would expect similar results. Obviously there is, as you say, a significant stochastic component to any model of this type.”
That is a thing. Local stochastic component itself might be relatively small, but as particles (drifters) enter different streamlines, they are carried to different locations.
I am not so sure about Mosselbay: take a look at forward drift results in your plot – all ‘particles’ are heading towards SA passing by the southern tip of Madagascar. Once they reach the Agulhas current, they will reach SA coast.
Here is a good schematic illustration:
https://www.google.ae/search?site=&source=hp&ei=GXj2VvmOI4LP6ASWkp3QBQ&q=agulhas+current&oq=aughulas+curre&gs_l=mobile-gws-hp.1.0.0i22i10i30.833.5537.0.6914.15.15.0.1.1.0.428.4188.2-11j3j1.15.0….0…1c.1j4.64.mobile-gws-hp..1.14.3436.3.L2je1QOn2JE#imgrc=FFswPu8ZIuvolM%3A
I guess it is clear where the most critical bifurcation point for the reverse drift analysis will be.
Matty,
Re: “I can’t get the towelette into the same category as the flaperon.”.
Who does say it is in the same category? It may or may not be from MH370. It is silly to state it is not from MH370. Likewise it is silly to state it is from MH370.
The question was why there no debris from the interior of MH370. My response is there might be at least two suspected ‘candidates’ from the interior. Do you disagree?
Re: “There is a decent sized Malaysian community here in Perth and MAS planes would come here daily”.
How often do you see not unpacked towelettes at your beach? How many of them from MAS? I can’t recall I ever saw any unpacked towelette from any airlines at any beach. OK, let’s count from today. When you find something with MAS logo at your beach, please post a picture.
@Rob since @everyone presumably includes me,let me lay out my case.
Short of Shah or any other pilot screaming “beam me up Scotty” the very mention of which prompted aliens from Zork to vacuum MH370 into their saucer before cartwheeling hypersonically away from Earth why even the Milky Way into the vast Unknown at precisely 1.25am on 8 March 2014, right on the dot of handover, I don’t see how any of the flotsam collected this far adds up as convincing evidence.
In simple words, all other postulations are valid including spoofs, Diego Garcia , my own pet ‘downed by a missile’ conjecture as well as SIO or NIO ( which I figured could be the exact spot – between Christmas Island and Australia- and is my second choice less likely though the case may be) crashes, ditching etc.. Yeah I did come across strongly in selling the missile shoot down theory a few posts back and was rightfully upbraided by Jeff.
Having said that I will stick with shoot down while according due respect to other theories floating around. And why? Because no one has ever come close to explaining the sudden event of a transponder going off suddenly at precisely changeover time at 1.25am on March 8 2014 somewhere over the South China Sea at precisely a “flight jurisdictional boundary”!
And yes plenty of countries have motivations for deceit and deception if a deliberate or accidental shoot down did happen.
Nope ….Flat Earth is so passé
@ROB
“Simple, the black has faded. If you put it up against a new badge, you would see what I mean.
The other parts have indeed faded. They started off as light grey, at least the flap fairing did. They now look as if they have been bleached, which is hardly a surprise”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/mh370/12030483/MH370-search-narrowed-to-hot-spot-as-analysis-finds-plane-did-not-conduct-controlled-landing.html
EuroPox
4 months ago
MAS livery is gray wings – there are many images online, including the plane that was MH370 (9M-MRO) but the Reunion flaperon is white (again several images online to choose from). So how does that happen? Before anyone suggests it, it cannot be due to sunlight (the paint contains UV stabilisers) and it cannot be due to immersion in seawater (which is highly corrosive but not a great bleaching agent – none of the pieces recovered from Air France AF447 were bleached and they had been immersed for a much longer period).
The NTSB report states that there are inconsistencies between the Reunion flaperon and MAS’s maintenance records – but it has not been reported what those inconsistencies are.
I have no more clue than anyone else about what happened to MH370 and I am not trying to start a ‘conspiracy theory’ but can anyone tell me how the flaperon might have changed colour?
EuroPox Jonationalist
4 months ago
I understand the point you are making but if you look at the pictures of the flaperon, they are ALL white. Amateur, professional, posted on Twitter, in journals, on the beach, off the beach, in sunlight, in shade – every single one of them is white; so it is not an issue of colour correction for one camera, in one place, on one day, with one set of lighting conditions.
The flaperon is certainly dirty and against a true white background it would certainly appear greyer but MAS livery was more like dull graphite. There are several images of 9M-MRO on the MAS tribute blog: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/… – whether side-by-side another colour or in isolation, none of the pictures shows a whitish flaperon.
All theories have to try to explain how the transponder and other tracking systems suddenly stopped working as the plane was between Malaysia and Vietnam – with no call for help. I believe it was human intervention, some think a fire, but a missile could have done it.
However, what about the debris field? The aerial search was concentrated on the S China sea where communications were lost and I suspect a missile would create a large debris field that would still be floating the next day. I suppose there are additional hypotheses about collision or coverup that could be added but you also then have to argue the ground radar, satellite pings, and flaperon discovery are all fake. Lots to assume.
Back on the subject of Flydubai, the AFP has just published a story about a Russian report that claims to quote the transcript of the plane’s final minute:
http://www.afp.com/en/news/pull-russian-tv-airs-final-words-flydubai-jet-crash-pilots#.VvZ06ZXYcgo.twitter
The story is a little confusing to me– I’m not sure what they’re referring to when they talk about the “pilot accidentally switched on a stabilising fin at the tail.” Any ideas?
@ROB
“They now look as if they have been bleached, which is hardly a surprise”
read the valid comments from europox:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/mh370/12030483/MH370-search-narrowed-to-hot-spot-as-analysis-finds-plane-did-not-conduct-controlled-landing.html#comment-2390370934
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/mh370/12030483/MH370-search-narrowed-to-hot-spot-as-analysis-finds-plane-did-not-conduct-controlled-landing.html#comment-2390477617
@jeffwise: I suspect a pilot erroneously engaged automatic stabilizer trim, which would aerodynamically counteract the column position so that pulling up would have no effect. Basically, the electric trim canceled input from the column.