[Peetwo]

The ATSB Bearded Popinjay promises due diligence on MH370?? -

On the 16th of February 2022 the ATSB released the following Media Statement: 

Statement on Mr Richard Godfrey’s analysis of the location for missing aircraft MH370

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has not had a formal involvement in any search for the missing aircraft MH370 since the conclusion of the first underwater search in 2017, has not recommenced a search for the aircraft, and notes that any decision to conduct further searches would be a matter for the Government of Malaysia.  

“The ATSB is aware of the work of Mr Richard Godfrey and acknowledges that he is a credible expert on the subject of MH370, but the ATSB does not have the technical expertise to, and has not been requested to, review his ‘MH370 Flight Path’ paper and workings. As such the ATSB cannot offer an assessment of the validity of Mr Godfrey’s work using WSPR data,” said ATSB Chief Commissioner Angus Mitchell.

“The ATSB does acknowledge that Mr Godfrey’s work recommends a search zone for MH370, a significant portion of which covers an area searched during the ATSB-led underwater search,” Mr Mitchell continued.

“When the ATSB was made aware that Mr Godfrey’s zone incorporates an area of ocean surveyed during the ATSB-led search, out of due diligence the ATSB requested Geoscience Australia review the data it held from the search to re-validate that no items of interest were detected in that area.”

The ATSB expects that review to be finalised in coming weeks, the results from which will be made public on the ATSB’s website.

“The ATSB acknowledges the importance of locating the aircraft to provide answers and closure to the families of those who lost loved ones,” Mr Mitchell said. “The ATSB remains an interested observer in all efforts to find the missing aircraft."

Mr Mitchell reiterated that any decision to conduct further searches for MH370 would be a matter for the Government of Malaysia, and that the ATSB was not aware of any requests to the Australian Government from Malaysia to support a new search for the missing aircraft.

 
Next via the UWA and Twiggy Forrest's philanthropy organisation:

Launch of Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre reveals the world in deep east Indian Ocean

01/02/2022 | 5 MINS (INCLUDING 3 MIN VIDEO) (P2 - Go to link above to view videos.. )

A world-leading research centre pushing the boundaries of frontier exploration and science in the deep sea has been officially launched in Perth by Minderoo Foundation Chairman, Dr Andrew Forrest AO, and The University of Western Australia Vice-Chancellor, Professor Amit Chakma.

The Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre has been established through a major five-year grant from Minderoo Foundation’s Flourishing Oceans initiative. Its mission is to explore the submerged earth fractures of the east Indian Ocean, six kilometres below the surface, known as the hadal zone.

Never-before-seen footage released from the first expedition to the Wallaby-Zenith Fracture Zone off the midwest coast of WA in the eastern Indian Ocean, outside Australian waters, reveals some big surprises according to the Centre’s Founding Director – world renowned biologist, engineer, adventurer, explorer and author, Professor Alan Jamieson.

“It is fascinating, it’s like another world,” Professor Jamieson said.

“On the very bottom it is soft white sand but there were a lot of animals, it is very diverse and then along the escarpment, which is a 600-mile-long wall, about 2000 metres high, there were things there I still don’t understand. It’s going to take a long time to unpack it in terms of what’s going on geologically.”

The centre is the vision of Dr Forrest, whose own PhD research focused heavily on the biodiversity of the Indian Ocean’s Perth Canyon and its ecological importance. Dr Forrest said the deep sea held the key to unlocking many of the questions about life on earth in terms of biodiversity, ocean processes such as currents and circulation, and human impacts, including climate change.

“We need to consider the ocean as one big body of water,” Dr Forrest said. “We know a lot about the top 2000 metres and then as you get deeper, our understanding becomes less and less. It’s Minderoo Foundation’s aim to fill in the gaps for that deepest 50 per cent of the ocean so we can better understand how to treat the ocean as a whole and understand what it is telling us about the pressure we are putting on it.”

The Indian Ocean is the world’s third-largest ocean spanning 70,560,000 km² and accounting for 19.5 per cent of the world’s ocean area. With an average depth of almost 4000m, it is the least understood of the world’s five named oceans and very little is known about marine fauna and species at its depths.

UWA Vice-Chancellor Professor Amit Chakma welcomed the investment in deep-sea research.

“UWA is proud to support this important collaboration contributing to much-needed research in one of the most unexplored parts of the world,” Professor Chakma said.

“It aims to comprehensively explore the deepest areas of the Indian Ocean – mapping the ocean floor, and characterising and discovering new fauna and marine species.”

Expeditions

The Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre has already completed a major expedition to the east Indian Ocean. It led the DSSV Pressure Drop on a one-month long campaign to the Wallaby-Zenith Fracture Zone, Wallaby-Cuvier Escarpment, Perth Canyon and the North Australian Basin in April-May 2021. There, researchers mapped these extraordinarily deep features, participated in 14 dives in the full ocean depth submersible DSV Limiting Factor, and completed 25 deployments of baited camera lander vehicles. Alan Jamieson led six of those dives to waters as deep at 6591m.

The results of that expedition include mapping the deep-sea biodiversity inhabiting both deep undersea volcanoes, the deepest parts of the fracture zone and the near-vertical walls of the abyssal escarpment and surveying what turned out to be a significant manganese nodule field at 4000-6000m depth.

In 2022, the centre is planning an expedition to the Diamantina Fracture Zone and Perth Canyon (March) as well as re-joining the DSSV Pressure Drop to dive in the deepest trenches around Japan in the North Pacific (June-July).

Science

In the first six months the centre has published various findings from a recent expedition including a global census of all fishes deeper than 5000m, plus the deepest-ever recorded squid, and a description of the fauna and habitats of the deepest places in Antarctica. It also has studies documenting large-scale seafloor disturbance at the deepest shipwreck ever found (The USS Johnston, a WWII destroyer sunk by the Japanese in the Battle off Samar) and its implications for deep-sea mining, deep ocean microbial studies on plastic contamination, and several studies relating to global genetic connectivity of some of the deepest animals in the world.

Technology

The centre is in the final stages of completing the construction of three new full ocean depth lander vehicles. These landers are equipped with baited imaging systems, collection devices and environmental monitoring sensors. The lander can operate to depths of 11,000m.

There are also plans to design and construct long-term sustainable observatories to be deployed at the base of the Perth canyon and another marine park off the WA coast. These observatories will operate for 6 to 12 months to monitor various ecological processes over long periods of time in some of the deepest areas off WA.

Ok now consider the following mapped tracking details of the UWA/Minderoo expedition and it's proximity to the original MH370 7th arc:



Then keep in mind this quote from Mike Chillit:

"..Keep in mind that the original 7th ping was calculated when everyone believed in “Zombie Pilot”, autopilot-to-the-end, etc. so the final ping has always been off by the distance the plane would fly during the final 9 minutes: 70 to 100 km.."

In the interest of 'due diligence' and considering the majority consensus (including former ATSB MH370 search director Peter Foley) is now firmly in the 'Pilot did it' camp, why wouldn't the Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre not allow Geoscience Australia/ATSB/AMSA/NTSB (former MH370 SSWG and/or some other totally independent body of experts) access to the scanning footage/data etc. obtained during their expedition to the Wallaby-Zenith Fracture Zone...

Especially when you consider the following image (and summary explanation of how it was derived) from the area scanned during the Minderoo-UWA expedition - courtesy of Mike Chillit: 

Germany’s Geomar, an oceanographic organization like Woods Hole or Scripps, unofficially searched for the plane the same time the rest of us did. They used a doctoral student named Jonathan Durgadoo who used a drift model known as particle drift to simulate the flaperon’ s origin in 2015-16. Durgadoo found that it probably started between Batavia Seamount and Zenith. There was plenty of reason to believe Durgadoo was close to the right place, not the least of which was the US satellite image of debris at Zenith. Before we knew it Geomar sponsored a scientific cruise to Zenith; but they called it a geologic/biologic cruise. But, miracle of miracles, they also used multibeam to scan the abyss, and that’s when they caught “the object”. Not yet clear if they knew they filmed it or were lucky. They initially removed it from public access, but they were required to send complete copies to Scripps and GEBCO. Scripps turned around and published the whole thing and I caught it.

Of course the image could be an unusually (B777) shaped rocky outcrop but surely in the interest of Popinjay's promise of 'due diligence' it is worth checking out?  - 

MTF...P2