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Indian Ocean Debris Believed To Come From Missing Flight MH370
McGruber writes that air crash investigators, though maintaining that it is "too early to tell" with certainty, have 'a high degree of confidence' that a piece of wreckage found on the Indian Ocean island of La Reunion is from a Boeing 777 — the same model as the doomed MH370 which disappeared in March 2014. Investigators will need to examine closely the wreckage to link it to MH370, but MH370 was the only Boeing 777 ever lost over water.
A 'badly-damaged' suitcase has also been found in the same area: Google Translation of French-Language news report
That's 3800 miles (6100 km) from where the plane was last seen. I wonder if they'll be able to figure out how far the plane flew and how far the debris drifted.
If big wing sections broke off it suggests the onboard computer was not able to cruise the plane to a gentl landing (or maybe it tried and slammed into a giant wave). Anyways, if the plane broke up then the sonar signature for the jet is probably not what they're looking for and the pieces of the plane could be scattered over a very wide area. I imagine jet wings that are empty of fuel will float around for a while.
But lots of JETsam.
More than a year ago... http://slashdot.org/comments.p... Nathan
that's not a valise, that's an IBM 5110!
Obviously waiting for the analysis to be completed is out of the question so I postulate the piece of wing was planted in Reunion so the media can start this all over again.
If you look at the currents in the Indian Ocean, and trace backwards from Reunion (it and Mauritius are the two dots east of Madagascar), you pass right through the area they've been searching off of Australia.
The need to rename that network.
First, we know this is from the aircraft in question. How? It has been visually verified to be a part that is unique to a Boeing 777. The 777 has a remarkable safety record, with only one being lost at/over sea. Therefore, unless a shipload of 777 wing parts sank without Boeing's knowledge, this is from the incident airframe.
Second, we can now be certain of what was gleaned from the satellite data, that the crew flew the plane off course. How? The part washed-up from the Indian Ocean rather than the Pacific somewhere near China or Japan etc. This also tells us that whatever the famous oil rig worker saw, it had nothing to do with this flight.
Third, we can probably deduce that the part was separated from the rest of the airframe above the water or on a hard impact with the surface. Had this part been on the plane at the time of a "gentle" ditching, it likely would have been dragged to the bottom with the rest. Had this part (made of heavier-than-water materials) been dragged to the bottom, most of the air within it would have leaked out (these elements are not air-tight because if they were, they'd explode when planes climb to cruise altitude) and and any trapped air remaining would compress too much to provide buoyancy so it would not have risen to the surface to float around the ocean.
Identification of this piece as part of a 777 was initially disputed by Russia, until they realized Russia wasn't "suspected" of shooting down this one.
What are the chances this plane sunk from hitting an iceberg? Some icebergs very hard to see until it's too late as most of the iceberg is actually under the water (think Titanic, etc.)
As if they had enough problems, now Malaysian Airlines will get fined for littering
The main portion of an airliner's wings provides space for fuel tanks, but non of the articulated portions (ailerons, flaps, flaperons, spoilers, slats) have any fuel in them. The part in question which washed-up on shore is an inboard flaperon (a dual-function control surface which can function as a flap and an aileron as required by the flight control system). Like all such parts, it is hollow (to be light-weight) but has no fuel in it and is not even air-tight (if it was air-tight it would burst as the plane rose from seal level to 30K ft in normal flights - it's not designed as a pressure vessel)
Puttin's War and Malaysia flight MH17