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One for the DOI archives - Courtesy Mike Chillit's 7th Arc blog (Tim Tam quality.. ) 

MH370 Debris Drift Issues
Posted on August 11, 2016 by Mike Chillit — 2 Comments ↓

Overview

Are you interested in the likelihood MH370 debris DRIFTED FROM a particular location – north or south of where it was found? No problem. Plenty of opinions and drift studies to choose from. But do you also want reasonably credible analyses? Analyses prepared by people with the objectivity to do the work without losing their job or being reassigned to an outback salt-mine? If you do, that’s more difficult.

For reasonably objective studies, start by ignoring every single drift analysis that has come out of Australia. There are several from organizations like CSIRO, ATSB, and one or more small Australian colleges. It isn’t that those institutions don’t have the expertise to do good research. They do. But in this particular instance, they are not and probably cannot be objective. The loss of MH370 has become highly politicized in Australia, largely because the search was mismanaged on a massive scale by Australia’s in-house ATSB. As a result, Australia has become something of a Tasmanian devil and is to be avoided by everyone who wants to find the plane.

This sort of in-house loss of objectivity happens in organizations from time to time. It isn’t as uncommon as it should be. Most of the time leadership recognizes that the way out is to have the issue examined by an impartial third-party. In fact, Australia had to do that recently in another massive aircraft investigation fiasco known as Pel-Air. It is still not resolved, but fellow Commonwealth nation Canada was eventually asked to step in and pull Oz’s chestnuts from a firestorm.

For the most part, all drift analyses conducted by Australian entities conclude that MH370 debris found in the Mascarene Island area since July 2015 came from a narrow 100 km by 1,000 km search area SW of Perth where not one single piece of debris of any description has been found. They do that largely because Australia has already spent upwards of $100 million of its own money on the search, and has exactly nothing to show for it. Call it what you will, but it is not a stretch to conclude that well-intended Australian “researchers” are mostly determined to minimize the nation’s chagrin. But giving a Prime Minister the option to declare the plane “vaporized” or was the victim of an “alien abduction”, is not a very good solution. Better to come right out and declare, “We muffed it badly, and need help to complete the task.”

There are several non-Australian drift analyses worth considering. Two of them were conducted by Germany’s Geomar. They are both plausible and helpful. Yet another was prepared by France after it examined the flaperon found on Reunion Island in late July 2015. It is credible, although France itself is apparently not so sure of that.

NOAA has prepared several cursory drift examinations of the area. The results were not definitive and were not intended to be definitive. Yet another was conducted by Dr. Brock McEwen of Canada. It has not been formally published, but is a big improvement over Australian studies, and McEwen is credible. Finally, a few informal examinations have been published on Twitter by Moi using specially requested NOAA drifter “no-drogue” data. (I served as the New Jersey Judiciary’s Chief of Statistics for 7 years, and held similar positions elsewhere). This article will highlight the findings of yet another inquiry based on the same no-drogue dataset maintained by NOAA.

General Findings

Almost without exception, studies conducted by non-Australian entities have concluded that Mascarene Island debris likely originated somewhere WEST or NORTH of Western Australia. The target areas identified generally range from the Zenith Plateau area west of Exmouth to Java Island. Perth Basin a little farther south has also been found to be plausible in some instances.

This Analysis

The most recent analysis requested ALL no-drogue drifters from NOAA that were deployed between 1979 and the present in the following two geographic areas:

• from -7° S to -20° S latitude; and from 100° E to 114° E longitude; to be labeled the Wharton Basin group of no-drogue drifters; and,
  
• from -30° S to -40° S latitude; and from 80° E to 120° E longitude; to be labeled the Perth Area group of no-drogue drifters.
  

Here is a visual of each group location:


The two no-drogue drifter group deployment points.

Caution: it is not possible to state that groups of no-drogue drifters will behave exactly as aircraft debris will behave as it is pushed along by wind, wave, and currents. It is assumed that they drift sufficiently similar to be comparable, but there are no known studies that examine the issue in any detail. Indeed, such studies probably could not be designed to be relevant and applicable to every aircraft crash situation to be definitive.

It is enough to be sure there are no glaring issues that completely invalidate no-drogue drifters. None are known, so this review is believed to be useful and relevant until shown to be otherwise.

Drifters Selected by NOAA

Requesting drifter buoy data from NOAA is simple. In this instance, I defined the boundaries of the buoys I wanted (shown above) and NOAA electronically sent me date and other information on deployment and termination about an hour later. No buoys had to be excluded. I did a little formatting to handle the data with the software I prefer. NOAA sent me data on 73 buoys in the Wharton Basin group; 66 buoys in the Perth group.

For the Wharton Basin group, the average drift period was 329 days (11 months). Three buoys were in the water more than 1,000 days, and the longest was in the water for 1,252 days (3.4 years).

For the Perth group, average drift period was 441 days (15 months). Five buoys were in the water for more than 1,000 days, and the longest was in the water for 2,187 days (6 years).
It is also possible to obtain detailed track information from NOAA on each of these buoys, but that was not done in this instance. As a rule, it is too much information. What we want to know is where it ended up, not the travails it endured to get there.

Findings

In general, no-drogue drifter buoys dropped west of Perth were not only in the water 4 months longer, on average, than Wharton Basin drifters, Perth area drifters did not head for the Mascarene Islands. A high percentage stayed in the Perth area or washed ashore elsewhere on Western Australia or Australia’s great southern exposure before or after the Great Bight where there was no chance they would be found. Drifters that were deployed in the Perth area that eventually reached the Mascarene Island area tended to begin their journeys well west of the actual search area around 80° E longitude. Visuals for these findings follow, beginning with Wharton Basin area endpoint spray chart and path diagrams.


Wharton Basin area drifter endpoint spray chart.
 

Wharton Basin area drifter path summary.

Perth area spray chart and path summary.


Perth area drifter endpoint spray chart.


Perth area drifter path summary.

Bottom Line: Even if you searched the Mascarene Island area for debris from the greater Perth Basin area, you would be unlikely to find anything. Debris from that part of the southern Indian Ocean simply goes to other places. Debris that actually makes it, starts north and west of the MH370 search area.

Conclusion
The primary conclusion, shared by all studies NOT CONDUCTED by Australian interests, is that the search for MH370 must move north. Most of these studies also include or reference what is known as the 7th Arc as the most likely north – south intersection. But this latest study, above, has begun putting distance between all Inmarsat data and what can be gleaned from the debris. The 7th Arc probably should not be tossed quite yet, but it is wearing thin. Inmarsat does not have a credible reputation with data in this effort, and it has done little to help its own cause.

• Mike Chillit
  

You may download the files I received from NOAA as well as the Excel spreadsheets I used to work with them at this link. Enjoy. drifter-downloads

2 thoughts on “MH370 Debris Drift Issues”


Carol S. on August 11, 2016 at 11:33 pm said:

Remarkable analysis for the drift. More detail than I’ve seen on any other drift analysis and easier to figure out. BTW could not find any spelling or grammar errors.

I agree, the Oz experts would have to come up with something that matched what ATSB wanted to hear. They should have been, or should be, allowing the evidence to lead them. Since it seems unlikely that large pieces will be found in our lifetimes, more importance should be placed on what they know/have. I think I’ve said this before.
Great drift analysis that even I can understand.



Mike Chillit on August 11, 2016 at 11:56 pm said:

Thanks, Carol. High praise!

I’ll be interested to see if other non-Australian types confirm it. In most of my exchanges with CSIRO, the main event has tended to be an Old Soft Shoe on the head of a pin. Think they are all terrified of anyone finding it somewhere else. Don’t believe Australia would tell anyone if they found it somewhere else off their western coast.