[Peetwo]

A DOI - Part??

Fresh off social media this AM, via GEOMAR :

10.05.2016
MH370 – where to search?

11 May 2016 / Kiel. For more than two years an extensive search has been underway for the missing Boeing 777 of Malaysia Airlines (MH370) in the southeastern Indian Ocean. The first confirmed piece of debris was discovered last July on the island of La Réunion, and since then more pieces of the missing Boeing have been found along the southeast coast of Southern Africa. The question arises whether this additional information can be used to optimize the last remaining months of the extensive and costly search effort. A European research consortium under the leadership of GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre of Ocean Research presents results of a new analysis.

Flight MH370 seemed to disappear without trace after it vanished from radar screens on 8 March 2014. The discovery at the end of July 2015 of a part belonging to an aircraft’s wing brought renewed hope. A flaperon belonging to MH370 was found several thousand kilometres away from the suspected crash site on the island La Réunion. Meanwhile, more pieces from this aircraft have been found along the African southeast coast in Mozambique and South Africa as well as on an island belonging to Mauritius. Marine scientists from Kiel presented their first simulations with an ocean model about the possible drift of the flaperon shortly after it was found.  They have now refined their calculations in a joint effort with colleagues in France and the UK. Based on these latest results and under the assumption that analysis of satellite communications are correct, the most likely source region is located west of Australia, north of the current search area.

Dr. Jonathan Durgadoo, Prof. Dr. Arne Biastoch and Siren Rühs from GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel used ocean and wave models in combination with observational data. This provides a coherent realistic dataset for their drift analyses to determine the possible origin of the flaperon. To do so, they released particles, representing ‘virtual’ flaperons, around La Réunion and computed their trajectories back in time. "Of course it does not make much sense just to track only a few flaperons within the model," Dr. Durgadoo explains. "We have tracked back almost five million particles over a period of 16 months," Durgadoo continues. "We subsequently calculated the probable region of the particles’ positions on 8-9 March 2014."

“In our recent calculations we included more physical processes in order to simulate the drift more realistically”, Prof. Biastoch explains. “In particular the drift induced by wind generated ocean waves is now included”, Biastoch continues. “Even though we use state-of-the-art modelling systems, representing the ocean currents in the Indian Ocean quite well, all simulations naturally contain limitations. Our investigation is one important piece of the puzzle in finding MH370.”

As a result of the new calculations the possible source region of the flaperon was refined, and “While it is shifted a bit southward from the initial study done last September, our basic result that most particles originate from a region north of the current search area remains unchanged”, states Dr. Durgadoo.

The debris that were recently found at other locations in the southwestern Indian ocean fit this interpretation. “The ocean currents through the Mozambique Channel and along the South African coast are extensions of the route that passes by La Réunion”, says Prof. Biastoch. The Australian search authorities are aware of this report. “Whether or not these new results will be used to facilitate the last few months of the ongoing search for MH370 is not clear”, Arne Biastoch summarizes.
 
Downloads:
The graphic shows the most probable positions during the time of the crash of the MH370 flaperon found on La Réunion. Source: Jonathan Durgadoo, Siren Rühs, Arne Biastoch (GEOMAR),  May 2016
Report: "Backtracking of the MH370 flaperon from La Réunion" (May 2016)
 
Contact:
Dr. Andreas Villwock (GEOMAR, Communications & Media), Phone: +49-431 600-2802, presse(at)geomar.de

Hmm...wonder if there will be any press releases coming out the immaculate miniscule Chester's office refuting the GEOMAR claims that we're looking in the wrong area? Nah that's right the caretaker miniscule is way too busy tweeping phots of his motel room he stayed in for the night..



Meanwhile dedicated Fugro & Chinese crews are risking their lives chasing the ghosts of MH370 in an increasingly low probability search area - FDS!

A cruel winter sea returns to MH370 search zone

If finding MH370 on the floor of a complex deep ocean isn't challenging enough, waves up to 12 metres high have returned with the onset of winter

Ben Sandilands


Somewhere on these undersea peaks MH370 might be at rest

There is nothing new in this week’s MH370 search update except that it notes that a winter sea state has returned to the south Indian Ocean where the wreckage of the lost Malaysia Airlines 777 is thought to lie.

Winter weather has set in, with wave heights in the search area expected to peak at 12 metres and winds of up to 50 knots. Search operations are likely to be disrupted, but will resume as weather permits.

MH370 was on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board on March 8, 2014, when it vanished as a transponder identified flight on air traffic control screens while it was over the Gulf of Thailand.

The illustration at top of page shows a typical topographically enhanced display of the bathymetric data, which facilitates the towing of deep water sonar scanning devices with a safe clearance over obstacles on the otherwise imperfectly mapped sea floor.

Those towfish should be able to detect something as anomalous and metallic as aircraft wreckage as they resolve finer details in the blur of the bathymetric imagery, but can be confounded by the depth and complexity of some areas of the remaining targeted search zone of about 15,000 square kilometres.

This is what the surface of the south Indian Ocean looked like (below) from one of the search vessels last year in conditions far less severe than those typical of the southern winter months.

    
MTF...P2