[Peetwo]

Dazzling Dazza on MH370 - Not waving drowning...  

A summary off the AP MH370 forum of the recent days flurry of activity at ATSB HQ: 

Via ABC online:

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Photo: Investigators said the wing flap was probably not extended when the plane crashed. (AFP: Australian Transport Safety Bureau)

MH370 was likely in 'uncontrolled descent', new report finds

Via the Oz:

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Plane on ‘cruise’ before crash
12:00amBRENDAN NICHOLSON
Examination of wreckage from MH370 indicates its flaps were in a ‘cruise’ position when it crashed.

Worth a 1000 words, Hoody does it again - The pic from the Oz deserves another caption comp but where would you start??

The look on Hoody's face is a classic.." Is this miniscule for real??"
The gent looking under the flap..."what's he got under there??"
The Hoody extended hand...hmm maybe I'll leave that alone...  

BB - It appears to me that the taxpayer-funded ATSB members should be more focused on having an open, transparent and truthful inquiry into MH370.

  
On that point we should not forget that it was the Dolan led ATSB, that originally narrowed the scope of the 7th arc deep ocean search to the current high priority search zone. Now that same organisation believes we should be searching 'just a little bit' further North and wants our Government to go cap in hand to the other major DIPs (China & Malaysia at least??) for an additional $30 million to continue....

While we're on Peter Folly, I would like to award him a honorary AP Choc Frog for selflessly coming to the rescue of our totally inept NFI miniscule, who had forgotten polly-waffle rule 101: "when your in deep, stop digging" -     

Excerpt Press Conference — MH370 yesterday, note how DDDD remembers his pre-prepared lines but unfortunately that's all he remembers..   :

..Darren Chester: Well, ladies and gentlemen, we're available to answer any questions.

Question: Minister, how long to do you anticipate this first principles review will take to complete?

Darren Chester: Well, the team's going to be here in Canberra for the rest of the week, so we're talking about a three-day process and that will conclude by the end of this week.

Question: What do you hope to get out of it?

Darren Chester: Well, it's an opportunity to gather the experts from around the world to look at the available information, to exchange ideas. It's an opportunity for a full assessment of how the underwater search has been carried out, and a reassessment of the information from this process will be made publicly available at the conclusion—once there has been time to evaluate the discussions.

Question: Will there be a new search come out of it? It seems pointless to have a reassessment if the search is drawing to a close.

Darren Chester: Well I disagree. There is nothing pointless about what I said was quite an historic and heroic effort to search for MH370. We do owe it to the families involved of the passengers and crew to do the best we possibly can. We are doing the best we possibly can, and we assembled experts from around the world to reassess the data that's available to us and then make our decisions.

Look, into the future I must emphasise that decisions made in relation to the search area are not those for Australia alone. As I indicated, it's a tripartite agreement. We work in partnership with the Malaysian and Chinese governments on these issues. Quite rightly, we will continue to explore every bit of information that's available, and allow the experts from the ATSB in Australia, also the international experience, to inform our efforts.

Question: Are you ruling out a new search?

Darren Chester: All I'm providing for you today is an update on what's occurred thus far, and the plan for the next three days in terms of the first principles review. It's not my role as a Minister to second-guess the experts. What we're saying is there was an agreement reached in July this year between the three nations involved to focus on and complete a 120,000 square kilometre search area, and in the absence of any further credible evidence leading to any specific location, the search would be suspended at that time. So that is the process we've undertaken.

Question: Darren, you said that they're quite confident that they should be able to find something in the current search area. How likely is that?

Darren Chester: Well, those aren't words I've used in terms of confidence, or levels of confidence. We've remained hopeful throughout the whole process that we are searching the right area, and the report released today confirms we are searching in the right area. But in the absence of finding the aircraft, obviously it leaves room for further speculation and theories, but I simply won't second-guess the experts.

The information provided to us is that we are searching in the right area, but the degree of difficulty is something we all need to understand. We are talking about a search area which is 2,600 kilometres off the coast of Western Australia; we're talking about searching sections of the ocean which are four to six kilometres deep, with canyons and ravines. It is an extremely difficult and complex search. It has tested the limits of human engineering excellence and technical capacity, and it has been an historic effort.

To have not found the aircraft at this stage is frustrating for everyone involved, and particularly for the families of the passengers and crew, but we're continuing to work through the final 10,000 square kilometres of the 120,000 square kilometre high priority area, and we look forward to the discussion this week in terms of gathering experts from around the world to allow them to exchange their ideas, to re-examine the evidence that's available to us. And I think everyone involved is trying to keep hopeful and keep their spirits up about the prospects of locating MH370.

Question: Minister, could you actually give us an idea—you've mentioned that this is 6 kilometres deep in places, the canyons and ravines, very tough underwater terrain. What are the chances the aircraft could've slithered into some sort of underwater gully?

Darren Chester: Look, it's probably best if I defer to Peter now, in terms of the technical details in that regard. You've painted a very accurate picture of the challenging circumstances. If we were to imagine this 120,000 square kilometre search area and imagine it was on land, you're talking about a section of terrain from Melbourne to Sydney along the Great Dividing Range, except the depths are deeper than the Dividing Range is high. It is an extraordinarily challenging search area, but I'll refer you to Peter, if you like, in terms of some of the technical aspects.

Peter Foley: It's a good question, Brendan, and essentially why we're conducting the reacquisition of a number of sonar contacts with a remotely operated vehicle is to eliminate them. We've also got an AUV out there that covers some of the more challenging terrain, and it's a process of improving our confidence that we haven't missed it within the current search area.

Question: One of the aspects of this whole search that is quite extraordinary is the tiny amount of evidence you're actually working with. Now, you are–Defence, scientists and others–have helped you mine tiny signals that have come from this aircraft, or have been sent to this aircraft, responses to signals or whatever. This has been criticised by some as being too slender a body of evidence for you to rely on. Now, I understand that's all that you've got, but you do have an expert panel advising you–I gather some of those members are here. Is the feeling among the experts that you have advising you supportive of the conclusions you've reached so far?

Peter Foley: I must say, ATSB convene and coordinate the search strategy work as a whole, it's contributed to by a range of expert individuals, we've commissioned additional work, drift modelling is a good example of that where we've commissioned an expert to do our drift modelling as well once we started to see debris turn up around the coastlines of Africa. So you know, in essence we're not just reliant on the very scant satellite data, it's a key piece of the puzzle but we're also informed by anything that we can be informed by in addition to that. At this point it is probably debris which has enhanced our knowledge of certainly what happened at the end of flight, with the analysis of that section of main flap and indeed what we are doing with drift modelling, and currently in the process of, which is outlined briefly in the report there.

Question: Can you explain a little more about the flap, whether it was extended or not and what that actually means in terms of whether anyone was in control of the aircraft?

Peter Foley: What we've concluded from the analysis of that section of right main flap is that it was probably in a non-extended position which means that the aircraft wasn't configured for a landing or a ditching. You can draw your own conclusions as to whether that means someone was in control or not but taken together with the analysis of those last two burst frequency offsets, which indicate a high and increasing rate of descent, it means that we're looking for an aircraft that's actually quite close to the seventh arc.

Question: When we last spoke you mentioning the doubt about the evidence of the flap, what would it point to, I'm just wondering how confident you are as it's the mother of all conspiracy theories around some of these things. I mean how much solidity is there in kind of what you found? Is it sort of possible to definitively say you've got enough here to rule out some of those odd theories going around?

Peter Foley: The words in the report are most likely and that's the state that we indicate the flap was in, it was most likely in a non-extended or housed position, so you can never be 100 per cent and we are very reluctant to express absolute certainty but that's the most likely scenario.

Question: If the plane doesn't turn up in this last 10,000 square kilometres that needs to be searched, would the search be seen as a failure or do you think it was always the case of a needle in a haystack? You're probably not going to find it anyway?

Peter Foley: I don't think in any way, shape or form spending two and a half years of extraordinary effort looking for the aircraft could be seen as a failure and I would hate to express that thought amongst my team and indeed all the experts who are in the room who've devoted an extraordinary amount of time to finding the solution to a puzzle. I mean every single one of us is motivated by the desire to find the aircraft for the families and indeed for aviation safety more broadly.

Question: What do you hope this re-examination of evidence will achieve?

Peter Foley: Robin, it's really about going back to first principles and looking at all the evidence before us, any new analysis that we have before us and some of the analysis is emerging as Greg indicated, the drift analysis is evolving, I think also it's a chance to look back and see if there's anything else that we can possibly do to better our understanding, any additional work that can be done to better our understanding about what happened to that aircraft.

Question: And with this first principles review could we then see the search extended?

Peter Foley: That's not a question for me, it's a question for government, so I mean we will produce a report at the end of the day, from what the experts discuss, so over the next three days and then of course it's up to the governments tripartite to make any decisions in relation to that.

Question: And what is a realistic timeline though with searching for the aircraft? Obviously there's an end date at the moment, how long would you like to see that extended for?

Peter Foley: I have personal views, which I don't care to share but I don't think anyone, anyone who's been involved in this search wants to walk away without finding that aircraft, that's just human nature.

Question: Is this your last shot at maybe you know, finding that somewhere else?

Peter Foley: I don't think there's a last shot, I think we're doing what's a sensible approach at this point and that's to review all the evidence we have and look at the analysis and see if there's anything extra that can be done.

 
I have no doubt that Foley, unlike his miniscule, genuinely believes that given further resources the ATSB search effort will discover the wreck of MH370 somewhere North of the current priority search zone. Unfortunately for Foley he is dependent on a miniscule who has no interest, understanding or inclination to sell the concept of a prolonged search heading further North of the current search zone.

Nowhere is this more clear when our NFI miniscule says:

...in July this year between the three nations involved to focus on and complete a 120,000 square kilometre search area, and in the absence of any further credible evidence leading to any specific location, the search would be suspended at that time. So that is the process we've undertaken...

    
In other words the latest ATSB MH370 report outlining the latest findings, including the most recent forensic analysis of the MH370 debris and the further drift analysis etc..etc. doesn't meet the required agreed threshold of 'further credible evidence' - WTD??


MTF...P2