[Peetwo]

MH370 2nd anniversary - Interim report Mark II?? 
To hopefully complement the aussie & "V" posts (above), the following is the latest from the Duncan Steel website: 

Duncan Steel's latest.

http://www.duncansteel.com/archives/2261
http://www.duncansteel.com/archives/2251

RNZAF photographs of the sea surface in the MH370 search area in the southern Indian Ocean

Duncan Steel
2016 March 6th
(Updated March 7th)

Three pieces of aircraft debris that may be associated with MH370 have now been found: the flaperon discovered in La Réunion last July, and in the past week or so two items that appear likely to be smaller fragments of the rear stabilisers, one found in Mozambique and the other again in La Réunion. For a brief discussion of these two new discoveries, please see my preceding post.

The condition of the latter two items appears to be consistent with the aircraft having disintegrated in a high-speed impact into the ocean. The flaperon photographs have been interpreted as being consistent with failure of its attachment fittings to the wing due to violent fluttering after hydraulic power being lost following electrical power failure after fuel exhaustion.

A more rigorous understanding of what may have occurred in each of these three cases awaits: (a) Confirmation that the recently-found two pieces are indeed from MH370; and (b) Analysis by suitable experts of the physical condition of all three. In connection with that, I mention that we await a public release by the French authorities of the results of their inspection of the flaperon; the delay in this regard seems unconscionable.

What we do know is that the discovery locations of the latest two items almost two years after the disappearance of MH370 is consistent with oceanic drift from a crash location around latitude 37S on the 7th Arc. It is also conceivable that the crash may have occurred some distance from that location (say between 30S and 35S on that arc), but the discovery of those debris items at this time is not contrary to the hypothesis that the aircraft came down around 37S.

Many people have argued in different venues that the lack of any obvious floating debris field in the ocean around the priority search region (between 35S and 40S adjacent to the 7th Arc) implies one or other of the following two things: either (i) The aircraft made a controlled landing in that region and so remained largely intact; or (ii) It crashed somewhere else entirely.

It would seem that the discovery of the latest (yet to be confirmed) items from MH370 – and, presumably, there will be more to follow – comprise evidence that such a floating debris field must have existed at some stage following the crash, with later (and ongoing) dispersal. The question then arises: why was such a debris field not detected from the patrol aircraft sent out over the Indian Ocean for just this reason?
Many of the aircraft in question were RAAF (Royal Australian Air Force) P3 Orions; there were also P-8A Poseidon aircraft from the US Navy’s VP-16 ‘War Eagles’ squadron on detachment in Okinawa, and other military and civilian aircraft. For overall information about the MH370 air search, see here.

Another Orion was provided by the RNZAF (Royal New Zealand Air Force). Information of the role played by the RNZAF team was made available through various media, such as here and here. That RNZAF flew many sorties as part of the overall search effort.

On at least one of those sorties a journalist was on board, and he filed reports for several news media sites. These reports included some of the photographs of the ocean surface collected by the military personnel. A few of those photographs have already been made public (for example here, and here), but most have not.

It was stated in late March 2014 by the Commander of Joint Forces of the NZDF (New Zealand Defence Force) that various floating items were seen in the whole collection of photographs, and that these might be debris from MH370. On the same day (March 30th) it was widely understood that “All ships in the search area were being tasked to locate and identify the objects sighted by aircraft over the past two days.”

Despite the above, no announcement was made that any of the floating debris that could be associated with MH370; on the other hand, it is not clear whether the items observed from the RNZAF Orion (and, presumably, also from RAAF, and other, aircraft) were all followed up either from the air, or by surface vessels.

In order to get a better idea of what was detected in the aerial photographs – the images shown in the media tend to be derivative in that they are photographs taken of computer screens displaying zoomed-in images and so on – a member of the Independent Group resident in New Zealand made a Freedom of Information (FOI) request for all original imagery to be made available. The NZDF kindly supplied 184 JPEG images, about 1 GB in all. The images are apparently digital originals carrying metadata such as the camera type, exposure time and focal length, time of collection; and in some cases GPS coordinates including altitude.

Many of these images are repeat exposures of the same floating item of (potential) interest, whilst others show nothing obvious apart from the sea itself. I have selected 15 (updated: two added on March 7th) images that others might find of interest, in terms of understanding what was observed by the RNZAF crew. These images are available for download from here; typical image sizes are 5 or 6 MB.

Note that these images are Crown Copyright, NZDF.

It is not claimed here that any particular item in these images is a part from MH370; however, it would be heartening to know that each of these was closely inspected and demonstrated not to be part of the missing aircraft. Some appear to be such things as discarded fishing gear, and I have included these so as to give people some context in terms of the content of other images.

Whilst the RNZAF Orion flew many sorties in this collaboration with the RAAF, the number flown by the RAAF was much greater. One presumes that the RAAF Orion crews collected much imagery themselves, and of course would have followed up the debris items reported by the RNZAF. Perhaps someone resident in Australia would like to make a FOI request for all RAAF imagery from their sorties to be made available publicly, just as has occurred here. This might also be done for the other nations involved.

To which Ben Sandilands composed this blog piece:

Possible new MH370 fragments point to likely high speed impact

Ben Sandilands | Mar 07, 2016 3:47PM |



The Dropbox album of Blaine Gibson’s Mozambique find

Subject to positive identification, physicist and independent MH370 investigator Duncan Steel says the possible new fragments of the missing 777 found in Mozambique and on La Reunion are consistent with a high speed impact with the ocean.

In several posts on his website, Dr Steel also publishes, via Dropbox, a range of images of floating debris that may have come from the crashed jet as photographed by an RNZAF Orion aircraft early in the aerial search phase after the Malaysia Airlines flight vanished on 8 March 2014 with 239 people on board en route from Kuala Lumpur and Beijing.

He underlines the point that none of the new photos released under a New Zealand Freedom of Information request necessarily show objects that are from MH370, yet suggests that not everything seen by multi-national search for floating wreckage may have been properly checked out.

These latest posts, one featuring the aerial search photos, and the other  providing information and analysis of the new fragments, also include a more extensive photo album of the possible fragment of the horizontal stabiliser found by US researcher Blaine Gibson, on a sandbar in the Mozambique Channel last week.

They also link to an Australian website set up to track floating plastics in the world’s oceans but which has now found a new role in predicting how debris from MH370 may have been dispersed in the Indian Ocean over time starting from points in the priority sea floor search zone SW of Western Australia...

...In fact the few technical media or aviation reporters covering the early search, including myself, did raise concerns in print, and in electronic media interviews, with the haste with which places where potential MH370 debris was sighted were quickly, perhaps prematurely dropped for more north-easterly search areas.

That period in the search was characterised by optimism that the missing jet would soon be found, and came right at the end of period in which items such as bodies, emergency floats or slides, and items of clothing and cabin furnishings, were most likely going to become unrecoverable or very widely dispersed.

Public discussion of the loss of MH370 has succumbed to the strange amnesia apparent in social media, in which many of the loudest voices are the ones ignorant of the early sequence of events, and baffled by the technicalities that do not fit easily into video grabs or preconceptions.

The IG or Independent Group of scientists, which includes Duncan Steel, has regularly raised concerns about the assumptions or at times, lack of detail, provided by the official search and its strategic advisors, as well as trying to address some of misplaced criticism of those efforts from other quarters.

The validation, or repudiation, of the latest fragments attributed to the crashed airliner is of far reaching importance. And on remote shores, the search for more potential clues to solving the riddles of the world’s greatest aviation mystery continues.

P2 Observation??

Dolan quote (see HERE): Dolan says the ATSB’s approach has been dynamic, transparent and and informed by regular correspondence with the Independent Group. “They provide a criticism and questioning that is very valuable to us. That’s one component of the wonders of the internet.”

Less welcome is the correspondence – often “quite insistent”, he says – from those whose theories cast doubt on the operation “with no real reason”. “We will listen to anyone, but the more they insist on things that are inconsistent with the facts, the less we’re going to pay attention to them.”

I wonder if the MH370 Super Sleuth would pay the IG group the same complementary statement in hindsight if he had of reviewed the Duncan Steel blog beforehand??

Like aussie500, "V" & many others, it still deeply troubles me that after the obvious deceptions, after the fact, that we (Australia) blindly followed the Malaysian narrative on where MH370 went prior to/at/or after IGARI?? How we could define a priority search area in the SIO without a proven, factual, 'raw data' FMT is simply beyond me...

Here's hoping that today's 2nd interim report may finally put to rest the speculation on the FMT...


MTF...P2