[ventus45]

These are from Victor's blog.

ventus45 says:
March 29, 2018 at 8:15 am

@DennisW

I made my position on the flaperon quite clear, long ago, 13th January 2016 in fact.

To be blunt, I think it (and the Pemba flap) were “planted”, and here is why, and how.

The essential points, both then and now are:-

The French established that:-
(a) the flaperon was part of the initial “ship set” installed at build by Boeing.
(b) the data plate was missing and it looked to have been geliberately “removed”.
© there was evidence of an apparent attempt at some “repair” AND also an apparent attempt to comply with implementing an AD, that had been, apparently, botched.

The Malaysians, when they went to France to see it, emerged after only an hour or so – to proclaim that they recognised MAS Maintenance Markings on it.

I don’t think either maintenance work or work to impliment AD’s to flight control surfaces are done “on wing” Dennis, in fact, I know for an absolute fact, from practical experience with glider inspections, maintenance and repair in the 1970’s, that they most definately are not. They are removed, and they go to “the shop” to be worked on. Ailerons and elevators being critical, balance and rigging wise. Even painting them required “doing it all again”. In the meantime, the aircraft is “AOG”, or is returned to service by fitting a spare. Note that last bit.

But to move on from the obvious.

Notwithstanding all that, there are a multitude of unresolved issues regarding:-
(a) trailing edge damage,
(b) leading edge is undamaged,
© failure modes of the mounts and PCU attachments are unresolved,
(d) and of course, there is the case of the barnacles.

But setting all that aside for the moment.

Now consider the Pemba Flap segment.

Malaysia, after having made a big song and dance about the French refusing to give them the flaperon mind, were apparently not interested in the flap initially – strange don’t you think ? Why ?

Enter the ATSB. The ATSB eventually gets the flap sent to Australia, themselves.

Again, no data plate at all, trailing egde damage, no leading edge damage, flap track attachment mount snapped through the middle and a steel rod broken in the middle, but no reported evidence of any damage let alone stress cracking at the point of mounting to the composit structure. The forces required to break those metal parts are huge, yet the composite structure that reacted those loads is undamaged ? Not credible. Then of course, that flap mounting was removed, and has never been seen again. Why ?

Anyway, the ATSB then decides (after consulting the French) that the damage to both the flap and flaperon is consistent with them both being in the up position at the time of damage, which occurred simultaneously, ie, they damaged each other.

Now, there is no way that I can see that any of that is consistent with either a high speed dive flutter separation, a high speed dive water entry, or a ditching.

So what does that leave us ?

There is a very simple explanation.

In 2012, 9M-MRO was involved in a ground acident – a taxi accident.
It stuffed it’s right wing tip through the lower tail and rudder of an A340 in China.
The A340 was stationary. 9M-MRO was the aircraft in motion, ie, with the “energy”.
We know the aircraft was repaired and eventually returned to service, but how long it took, who did it, and what components were replaced, I can not find out, and I have looked. Perhaps others can put it on their “to-do-lists”, someone might find some useful information.

But in the absence of hard evidence, a little though exercise says that a heavy B777 taxing at 10 knots or so, clouting an A340, puts a hell of a lot of energy through the right wing, with a very long leverage arm, which flexes the wing spanwise, both laterally (to the rear) and in torsion about the wing box elastic axis. Trailing edge bits, hanging off two mount points each, get compressed together laterally. Well low and behold, they are in the up position too.

Now it gets speculative.

Being damaged, they are removed, and are replaced with spares, as well as the outer 5 feet or so apparently, of the right wing tip. All good, signed off, and the aircraft retuns to service.

So, what happens to the removed components ?
Chuck them in the nearest dumster ?
No. Too valuable, and damage is apparently minimal.
Obviously, they are shipped back to MAS for repair.

Some time later, repair is attempted, and ……….. botched ?

As a result, the item(s) are then condemned, so the data plates are removed and destroyed as part of the standard protocols in place, (safety remember – fake unauthorised parts – unorthorised recycling of damaged and condemned parts – etc – a BIG issue in the aviation industry) and the big bits go to the disposal guys. All this takes time, sometimes people are slack, and it takes a while. It didn’t get done.

They languish under a tarp somewhere, out the back of a hangar, or more likely, at some spare parts storage facility. Every major airline has them, and they are most often not on the airport. Airport space is limited and expensive. You keep your big spares and repairables in an industrial warehouse area, usually not too far away.

Come 2014, 9M-MRO goes missing.

By 2015 people were openly asking – “where is the debris”.

Now it gets really speculative.

Someone needed an answer, for, “where is the debris”.
Suddenly, those two major components, have a “resurrection”, of sorts.

As I see it, desperate attemts to prove that the first and most major component (the flaperon) can hit a specific target (a small island), in the middle of a huge ocean, at pretty much precisely the right time frame, to supposedly prove, that it came from a defined range on the northen part of the arc, on 8th March 2014, leaves me cold. The fact that it was found on that very small island of Reunion, is way too “cute”, way beyond credible. Thus, I do not consider the drift studies to be worth the paper they are printed on. Sorry to be so brutally blunt about it – but there it is.

And then, there is the Pemba flap, the flaperon’s partner, allegedly “found” by fishermen, in a hidden little bay, under a cliff, only visible, let alone accessible, from and by, a small boat ?
I wonder who tipped them off to go look in that little bay.


DennisW says:
March 29, 2018 at 8:26 am

@Ventus
Wow. You have obviously put a great deal of thought (and effort) into those two pieces of debris. I am very impressed, and I have no rebuttal to provide.


Victor Iannello says:
March 29, 2018 at 8:32 am

@ventus45: Besides throwing out the drift analyses and the BFO data at the log-on at 18:25, in your scenario, if I understand things correctly, the Malaysians are co-conspirators in planting the flaperon. And why would they do this?

I will now add the following here.

@DennisW

A little video for you.
Right Wing tip of an Airbus A330 slicing through the tail of an Airbus A321.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKyygyiM...e=youtu.be
Freeze the frames, it is hard to see, but note that the A330 wing deflects slightly, both upwards and backwards.

The 60 Minutes program is clearly laying the groundwork for:-
"the pilot did it - unfortunate, tragic, but an isolated and rare event - case closed - don't worry about it - stop the search - look at how to prevent a rouge pilot doing it again".

Very simplistic, and the public will swallow it.

But was it simply suicide, or political martyrdom ?

Simple suicide is too simple.

This was too complicated to be simple suicide. Months of planning, detailed, indeed, meticulous.

The elephant in the room, is why he did it, and who knew he was doing it, and when, and what they did about it afterwards.

The first few days were telling. It wasn't incompetence. It was coverup, and still is.

Given recent political events, he may ultimately have helped precipitate those events, which were quite clearly, and undeniably, his aim / desire / wish / hope / objective.