[aussie500]

The original drift datum buoys were released by AMSA in the more southern search area they abandoned so quickly, and the area where the false pings were. I doubt the ATSB ever released anything in the current area, or they would have realized nothing would drift towards West Sumatra, it would be scattered all over Australia long before now. So I really doubt they will be releasing an accurate drift model for their 7th arc. It would just prove they were looking in the wrong place. They are probably still looking for an expert who will say otherwise.

That we have such a great drift modelling program and that the ATSB came up with that woeful tale about West Sumatra are completely contradictory. The ATSB seems to have gone and found their own variety of expert on drift models.

The French sat sighting north of the original batch was a dead whale, It was large, and white, with lots of other fish and whales in the area no doubt.
https://twitter.com/PDChina/status/44808...96/photo/1
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-24/ma...th/5340338

CSB Brilliant tracked that down since she was in the area on her way to where HMAS Success had been a few days before and where Xuelong was currently investigating sightings made by the aerial search. There were also from the 27th 3 Chinese warships in that area that were not sending AIS data.

http://www.ihsmaritime360.com/article/12...370-search
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/...320543.htm

They did not leave when the search was moved North, but finished what they were doing. Most of them did not get there till the official Australian search was already moved north.

Some descriptions of some of the aerial sightings in that southern search area, none of which were photographed, or mentioned in any official report I ever saw.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/...209817.htm
http://www.northernargus.com.au/story/21...for-mh370/

http://www.smh.com.au/world/malaysia-air...35e3d.html

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/mh370-press-br...14741.html

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2014/s3973122.htm

https://www.facebook.com/AustralianMarit...23/?type=1

ATSB ignored the original area in their reports, were more interested in searching north, so that is what they concentrated on. Hardly an unbiased view of things.

I think an eyewitness sighting of something that could be debris is far more reliable that what a satellite can show on the surface, anything can look white on the surface in a sat image, whales, fish splashes, clouds that look solid, eruptions, underwater gasses.
While there was some very interesting things seen in the sat images from that area, none of them turned up in the media. And unlike the northern area they searched, or the current 7th arc which is still crossed by a lot of ships, that more southern area is pretty much deserted most of the time. Not as likely to be full of rubbish.

So the original Aussie search was derailed by a dead whale, recalculations that proved to be wrong, false pings and apparently someones insistence that the search be moved North. Currently they have super glued the search to that 7th arc which personally I think is just another effort to delay or not find what they are supposedly looking for.
I jumped on the conspiracy wagon a long time ago, and concluded it was a cover up.

I am a bit late, bit long winded and this is not exactly the question I would have asked if I had the ATSB lined up in my sights but here it is. You can save it for next time, this will be going on for a while yet.

The only thing you can say with any confidence is that MH370 flew through that 7th arc, she was still in the air. The BFO is not reliable, a B777 is not likely to take a sudden dive and drop like a rock when it has been in stable flight, and with doubts about what the primary radar was actually tracking and how long the fuel lasted, why not just follow their preferred routes (ATSB and Inmarsat) past the 7th arc. Which will lead them back to the area the Aussies abandoned on the 27th March. Why not when the weather fines up again take a slow fishing trip back towards the area the underwater search should have been started in, if things had not been quickly shifted north, for a wild goose chase.

Because that area they abandoned looked a whole lot more interesting than any where else they have looked. Even without any mad Tomnod taggers bugging them for why they never looked at her preferred spot with the real interesting wreckage.