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Australia Rebooting Search For MH370
McGruber (1417641) writes "The Wall Street Journal reports that two months after pausing its search for the missing Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777-200ER, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) is ready to reboot its search. The ATSB is poised to select among bids from the world's most-advanced deep-water specialists, including offshore oil-and-gas companies, maritime research institutions and treasure hunters eager to use their technologies and experience to solve the Flight 370 riddle—and potentially raise their own profiles in the process. ... With no hard evidence of where the plane went down, the search will test the recovery industry's abilities like nothing before. In June, Australian authorities shifted the search zone for a third time — by about 600 miles to the southwest — after reanalyzing satellite transmissions. Even then, they said it was impossible to know whether the fresh search area would prove correct."
Here's my problem.
It went into the ocean. Everyone is pretty certain of that. Since it did, it either broke up, or was able to remain intact. Highly unlikely it remained entirely intact, statistically speaking, given what we know about pilots, aircraft, water landings.... So, that means it broke up. Now I imagine most debris would sink. Most! However, there was quite a bit of material on that plane that wouldn't, or shouldn't sink. Ever! I realize the ocean is big, and search efforts are rather small comparively, but I have a hard time believing we haven't found a single shred of debris from the plane. Maybe it's just a matter of time, but to me, the most disconcerting things is that we've found no trace of it, at all! Nothing!
Yes, pieces of debris should start washing up on beaches, but it can take a while. The first of the "lost rubber duckies" of 1992 took ten months to be found, and finds continued for at least fifteen years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...
Also, the floating debris won't include a lot of specifically airplane material. It will be seat cushions, clothing, plastic bottles...and the sea is already full of floating crap, so an object isn't certain to be recognized even if it appears on Waikiki Beach.