[Peetwo]

Captain's Log 02.01.17: DOI archive entry 170102

Today from Chillit's 7th Arc.. : When Governments Usurp

...There is a bit of research going around now that both pleases and irritates me. It pleases me because it appears to support two years of my own work on MH370’s final resting place. It irritates me because I spent a lot of time educating one of those who claims to be an author of the study (David Griffin) and he doesn’t credit me as the source for his new knowledge. Yet that individual was part of an extensive conversation between a NOAA colleague (Rick Lumpkin) with connections to all of the study’s authors. How did two national oceanographic bureaucracies learn the plane was likely to be in the Zenith Plateau area? They learned from Moi, and it will emerge (below) that Zenith Plateau was the farthest thing from their minds when I first approached them in February 2016.

My central concern is very simple and narrow: there is no attribution for two years of my own work that led these researchers to conclude MH370 is most likely in the Zenith Plateau area; not south of Broken Ridge where the original search is now wrapping up without so much as a moist towelette to show for three years and A$180 million. It is a small thing in the grand scheme of things. It isn’t something anyone could put in a bank. It may not even be something someone would add to a resume. But it is the fundamental way professional people and organizations do things...

...Posted by David Griffin on December 20, 2016, he is obviously not an author of a NOAA study published in The Guardian on December 14, 2016 that claims the plane came down near Zenith Plateau. Has Australia sunk to this level? Really? Notice the pronouns used in Dr. Griffin’s article, highlighted in yellow.

Griffin’s reference to “life-size, GPS-equipped replicas of the flaperon and two other found parts of the aircraft alongside oceanographic drifters” is a set of five faux flaperons.


ATSB’s Peter Foley and five faux flaperons built for the purpose of modeling drift rates and locations from the original (now to be abandoned) search area. This is laughably preposterous and has no know scientific merit. It effectively discredits the entire Australia-led effort to find MH370.

This ‘stunt’ may be the REAL reason David Griffin wants to claim he has had a change of heart and thinks the plane may have come down near Zenith Plateau. But if it is, he should have backdated his website so it isn’t so obvious nearly everything he has touched so far has been tainted in one way or another.

OK. Well, is it possible Rick Lumpkin was not the NOAA researcher who put Joaquin A. Trinanes onto the need for a proper drift study? No. Not likely at all. Lumpkin and Trinanes have worked together a long time. For example, they were co-investigators in 2004 for NOAA in an Eastern Caribbean study in which Lumpkin was a more senior researcher. And of course it is obvious that Griffin had inside knowledge gained from me personally and from Rick Lumpkin.

Conclusion:
This is a shameful example of how government researchers behave sometimes if they think they can get away with it. I have been pushing Australia and others to be more open to outsiders like myself for a long time. I’ve pushed a lot of buttons Down Under. We do that as fallible humans when we become frustrated with monolithic agencies that bully their way around for no good purpose. And I have had lots of company. Almost no one believes Australia has seriously tried to find that plane. And Australia is about to prove that by walking away from it entirely.

I suspect the Australian government in Canberra would like to have its thoroughly bungled search effort vaporized somehow. But sometimes you have to suck it up and do the right thing. Or let the next US administration do it with even more undesireable consequences quite possible.

It isn’t just Griffin’s claim he somehow experienced an epiphany that inspired him to think beyond the original search area. A lot of us around the world have contributed to the total effort to find MH370. Blaine Gibson, Geomar, Jonathon Durgadoo, and even Jeff Wise with his wholly improbable Kazakhstan scenario, forced at least a few people to begin thinking larger. Any properly documented effort to go beyond where we now are needs to include all of these efforts to show the stair-step progression it is. Not, as NOAA and Griffin have done: pretend they have worked in a vacuum.

Just too bad if someone in Canberra has had his feelings hurt. The secrecy and political interference have been horribly damaging. Face it. Try to learn. Stop hiding what has happened.

This entry was posted in 7th Arc by Mike Chillit. Bookmark the permalink.

Although lengthy the Chillit piece is very much worth a full read as it comprehensively documents more than 2 years of MC's dedication to the MH370 cause...

Also somewhat delayed but very much for the DOI Archive the following courtesy IBT:

MH370: South African all-rounder Albie Morkel finds possible piece of debris while holidaying at Mossel Bay

Morkel said he would hand over the aircraft fragment to the South African Civil Aviation Authority.

By Ananya Roy
December 30, 2016 10:26 GMT

South African cricketer Albie Morkel recently found a large piece of metal resembling an aircraft fragment while holidaying at Mossel Bay, South Africa. His Facebook post announcing the new find led to speculations that the piece could be from the doomed Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 which disappeared more than two years ago with 239 people on board.

Morkel reportedly found the piece of debris a week ago while playing cricket on the Mossel Bay beach. He will hand it over to the South African Civil Aviation Authority (Sacaa) once he is back from his vacation.

In his Facebook post dated 23 December, the Protea all-rounder posted images of the piece, seeking suggestions who to contact with regard to the find. Several people responded to the post and suggested he contact the national civil aviation body or the Australian authorities currently involved in the searchfor the missing Boeing 777.

In an interview to TMG Digital, Morkel said on Thursday (29 December): "I've been in touch with the ATSB (Australian Transport Safety Bureau) and authorities in Malaysia and will hand it over to Sacaa once I'm back from vacation so that they can do further investigations."

He also said that he found the debris on 22 December "while playing cricket with my son on the beach in front of the house we were renting in Mossel Bay", Herald Live reported.

South African cricketer Albie Morkel has found a piece of possible aircraft debris while holidaying in Mossel Bay, South Africa, which many believe could be part of a wing flap of the doomed Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 - File photoReuters

He added: "It looked to me as if it belonged to an airplane' so I took it home and posted the photo on Facebook." Morkel also said that some Facebook users who responded to his post believed the piece could be a wing fragment.

The all-rounder, who played his last test in 2015 and one-day international in 2012, is among the many people who have discovered pieces of debris along different beaches in and around South Africa. Some have already been confirmed by ATSB to have come from MH370 like a wing flap found off Tanzania coast in June.


South African all-rounder Albie MorkelReuters

One facebook user responded to Morkel's post saying this new piece could be a part of the wing flap found in Tanzania.

This new find comes at a time when the official search for the missing plane in southern Indian Ocean is drawing to a close, with no hopes of any extension.

Australia, Malaysia and China - all the parties involved in the search - have already decided not to extend the search beyond the designated 120,000sqkm seafloor unless concrete proof of a new location is found.

Morkel's find has raised hopes that it could provide an answer to one of the biggest mysteries the aviation world has seen in the recent past.

 
MTF...P2