[Peetwo]

In recent days there has been many regurgitated versions of this story (courtesy of the Huffington Post):

MH370 Malaysia Airlines Flight: Mystery Of Missing Debris Explained By Mathematicians

Huffington Post UK  |  By Sara C Nelson
Posted: 09/06/2015 11:37 BST Updated: 10/06/2015 10:59 BST

A team of academics has come up with a series of complex mathematical formulas in a bid to unravel the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.


The Beijing-bound Boeing 777 disappeared from radar with all 239 souls on board on 8 March last year, an hour into its departure from Kuala Lumpur.

It is largely assumed to have crashed into the Indian Ocean but no wreckage has been found and this month investigators announced they will not expand the search zone for the missing aircraft.
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The team puts the aircraft's 'nose-dive' entry into the water at a pitch angle of −90◦

Theories abound as to what happened to the plane and now experts have created a mathematical model which they believe explains just why no debris has ever been located.

The team, comprising members from Texas A&M, Penn State, Virginia Tech, MIT and the Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute, was led by Dr Goong Chen and presented its findings in the April 2015 edition of Notices of the American Mathematical Society.

It created five simulation models detailing the various ways the aircraft may have landed in the Indian Ocean [a “water entry problem"].

Among the simulations was a “smooth gliding water entry” as occurred in the case of US Airways Flight 1549, which was landed on the Hudson River by Captain Chelsey Sullenberger in 1999 with no loss of life.

Chesley Sullenberger's safe landing of Flight 1549 in the Hudson River made him a worldwide hero

This was discounted as having occurred with MH370, as “ditching a large airplane on the open Indian Ocean generally would involve waves of height several meters or more, easily causing breakup and the leak of debris.”

The study surmised the most likely scenario was that of a “nose-dive water-entry or a water-entry with a steep pitch angle”.

This theory also surmises that the steep angle is likely to have contributed to preserving the aircraft's fuselage.


It puts the pitch angle of the approaching plane at −90◦, with an angle of approach at 93◦ and assumes the ocean current flows from left to right at a velocity of 2m/sec.



The report adds: “Then, once the aircraft enters the water, the current gradually drives the aircraft towards the 5 o’clock direction. Eventually this could cause it to fall on the ocean floor belly up.”

“If an aircraft stalls in a climb, or if any control surfaces—ailerons, rudder, or stabilizers— malfunction, or if it runs out of fuel and the autopilot stops working (while the pilots are incapacitated or if the action is deliberate), it can fall into a steep nose-dive or even vertical drop."


Upon entry into the water:

“ …The wings and tail would be torn away and the fuselage could reach a depth of 30 meters or 40 meters within seconds, then sink without resurfacing. Wing pieces and other heavy debris would descend soon afterward. Whether buoyant debris from the passenger cabin—things like foam seat cushions, seatback tables and plastic drinking water bottles—would bob up to the surface would depend on whether the fuselage ruptured on impact, and how bad the damage was. 'It may have gone in almost complete somehow, and not left much on the surface,” said Jason Middleton, an aviation professor at Australia’s University of New South Wales.…' This may well offer a powerful clue as to why, so frustratingly, none of the debris of MH370 has been found so far.”

While the team’s research puts this as the most compelling explanation, it concedes: “The mystery of the final moments of MH370 is likely to remain until someday when its black box is found and decoded.”

You can read the full mathematical analysis [url=http://www.ams.org/notices/201504/rnoti-p330.pdf]here.

Inevitably the presented theory has been reviewed and discounted by many who are more than qualified to comment, examples:

[*] Victor Iannello ‏@RadiantPhysics Jun 9
Here's why the recent paper by Chen et al. cannot be used to justify the lack of floating debris for #MH370. pic.twitter.com/IrGTs67ZXH

[*]..or maybe just a little bit more embellished.. ..there is this from Julian Bray:

Is the academic mathematics of missing MH 370, a new clue or adding confusion to its demise?





Julian Bray writes: Returning to the tragic mystery of MH370... It is said that some mathematicians have now worked out why MH370 seemingly crashed and vanished without trace. The team led by mathematician Goong Chen from Texas A&M University in Qatar, "used applied mathematics and computational fluid dynamics to conduct numerical simulations on the RAAD Supercomputer of a Boeing 777 plunging into the ocean".  


The boffins claim their numbers suggest the aircraft dived straight down into the ocean, and at very high speed, it would according to their modelling have drilled itself deep into the seabed.

Silt and the fast flowing undercurrents would then have covered the aircraft leaving no trace. Any debris being trapped and sucked down with the pencil like projectile. Well that is as far as it goes, and to the casual observer, a possibility. But it is just another suggestion, and brings us no closer to figuring it all out. Working behind the scenes, helped by the regional resources of a major media group, several ideas have been tested and some interesting sightings and ideas followed up.

Most of the sightings have however been confirmed as upturned boats or even a whale. Nothing repeat nothing has been found so far.

But back to our mathematicians, this is why it won't work. ....

Leaving aside pages of calculus, they forget that even if the aircraft is dropping out of the sky nose first there is the matter of windshear, sideways gusts of air, and underwater - we'll call it watershear - these elements alone will always deflect and buffet the falling object.

We can prove it with a simple piece of schoolboy science. We need a filled 25 gallon water butt and 6 inch nail suspended dead centre over the open ends of the water butt. The objective is for the nail point down to hit the bottom of the water butt - dead centre ie no deviation. It won't happen, there will always be an element of deviation.

Transpose this to the ocean, scale up the falling object to airframe size, add wings, possibly a tail section unless that has parted company with the falling object and repeat.

On the way down, first windshear then as it hits sea level the object will deflect, even if the wings detach. The deviation may well cause the whole structure to glide sideways or spiral down. There also a slight possibility, a Hudson River style landing/ditching might have been a factor.

The argument goes the falling plane on autopilot levels off at speed, and skims, possibly bounces a few times over the water, then powers on over a deserted narrow beach/sand bar and  possibly scythes neatly into, and underneath a fast growing verdant jungle canopy overhead. Where the whole structure come to rest. Like a magicians magic trick, it vanishes.....

All on board may well have by this time expired. Possibly starved of oxygen by faulty cabin pressurisation or by the phenomenon of  contaminated 'bleed air' being fed from the jet engines into the cabin air system?

The aircraft having run on autopilot and effectively burned off all fuel reserves, would not automatically burst into flames as the accelerant would already be spent and the fumes left not sufficient to ignite.

This process also suggests the engines had shut down, and in the final long glide would in effect cool down, so no risk of ignition from that source.

But what about the satellite skip transmissions? It could be another aircraft innocently shadowing MH 370 then turning off creating a false trail. Remember that Inmarsat had not secured a contract with this airline, although the basic kit is fitted to all aircraft of this type.

JULIAN BRAY +44(0)1733 345581, Journalist, Broadcaster, Aviation Security & Operations Expert, Travel / Maritime & Cruise Industry, EQUITY, NUJ, Broadcast COOBE ISDN ++44 (0)1733 345020 (DUAL CODEC) SKYPE: JULIAN.BRAY.UK e&oe Cell: 07944 217476 or iPhone 0743 530 3145 www.aviationcomment.com   # # # VENDOR 10476453 http://feeds.feedburner.com/BraysDuckhouseBlog  

[*]

 Hmm...er okay no comment..

Moving on, I see that Sir Tim has popped up again, with some further commentary on the ATSB MH370 SIO deep sea search:

MH370 Search Is A ‘Goose Chase’ That Will End This Year, Emirates CEO Tim Clark Says





The CEO of one of the world’s largest airlines has claimed that the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is a “goose chase” which will be called off later this year.

Tim Clark, president of Dubai-based Emirates Airlines, made the comments to the Sydney Morning Herald while at an airline industry conference in Miami on Tuesday. Comparing the hunt for MH370 to the search for Amelia Earhart, Clark asserted that it will end later this year, after funding expires and the missing plane still hasn’t been found.

“I think it is only a question of time before the search is abandoned,” he said. “Do we have solutions? Do we have explanations? Cause? Reasons? No. It has sent us down a goose chase. It will be an Amelia Earhart repetition.”

The search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has been ongoing since the plane disappeared during a trip between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing on March 8, 2014, carrying 239 people. As the Inquisitr previously reported, the search for MH370 is being conducted in the Southern Ocean off the shores of Western Australia. Though the search area was doubled in April to 120,000 square kilometers, the governments of Australia, Malaysia, and China have agreed that it will not be expanded further if no trace of MH370 is found.

On Wednesday, the Australia Transportation Safety Bureau issued an operational update on the search for MH370, as NBC News reports. The agency related that one of the specialized search vessels had been damaged by giant waves, and asserted that severe weather conditions were hampering operations.

Clark has been outspoken in the past regarding the loss of MH370, publicly calling for new systems that prevent airplane transponders from being turned off. He has also questioned why MH370 was not tracked for a longer period of time by military radar, a stance that has led to him receiving numerous letters from the families of victims, as well as conspiracy theorists and interested parties who assert that the satellite tracking data regarding MH370 is flawed.

“I’m not going to say anything about what I think happened,” Clark asserted. “It remains an unresolved mystery. Somebody knows more about this than they are prepared to say. That is all I’m going to say.”

Despite his reference to the search as a “goose chase,” Clark also pointed out that he feels sympathetic to the families who lost loved ones aboard MH370, noting that they cannot move on without closure.

[*]
 
MTF..P2

Romeo And Juliet Act 2, scene 4, 67–73

Mercutio:

Come between us, good Benvolio, my wits faints.

Romeo:
Swits and spurs, swits and spurs, or I'll cry a match.

Mercutio:
Nay, if our wits run the wild-goose chase, I am done; for

thou hast more of the wild goose in one of thy wits than, I am

sure, I have in my whole five.