[Peetwo]

Dear Dazza cc Wazza - L&Ks Byron Bailey

Via the Oz today:

MH370: enough of the spurious counter-theories

• Byron Bailey
  
• The Australian
  
• 12:00AM August 2, 2016
  

Fiction is easier to manipulate than fact. When the MH370 ­flaperon was found on a beach on Reunion, and shipped to France, amazingly the ATSB sent one of its experts to Airbus in Toulouse.

I did not know that the ATSB had any B777-qualified pilots or engineers so what was the purpose of the trip?

The real experts in Toulouse concluded the damage to the trailing edge of the flaperon was consistent with its being in a lowered position during an attempted ditching. It was not the hand of God that moved the lever to lower the flaps, but a human hand very familiar with the B777.

Shortly after, a report ­appeared in The Daily Telegraph, attributed to an ATSB spokesman, stating damage to the trailing edge of the flaperon was consistent with high- speed flight and therefore not the result of a ditching.

I immediately pointed out the absurdity of this claim, only to have the ATSB’s cheer squad spend an inordinate amount of ­effort to come up with alternate theories showing why I was wrong.

I have been supersonic thousands of times. Flying a B777, I have experienced M. 9 — 90 per cent of the speed of sound — during slight overspeed conditions. In certification the B777 is taken to more than M. 95.

But a B777 with an unresponsive pilot and engines dead from fuel exhaustion definitely would not be able to exceed — due alone to gravity in a dive — the huge transonic critical drag rise that ­occurs around M. 97, because of the huge drag of those big engines.

A flaperon in the streamlined position definitely would not suffer damage to its trailing edge and control surface flutter to rapidly destroy or detach the whole surface. In other words The Daily Telegraph report, if it was from the ATSB, was a figment of someone’s imagination.

I have been attacked in the media by aviation industry people with their own agendas, some billed as aviation experts though they have never flown an aircraft.

Those self-appointed experts have variously described as ­“malicious”, “scurrilous” and “hysterical rubbish” my ­attempts to make the ATSB ­recognise what it was feeding the public was just plain wrong. The ATSB, described by one of those experts as “the best of the best”, accused me of causing ­anguish to the MH370 families. Look in the mirror, ATSB and then transport minister Warren Truss; I am waiting for your apology.

One can only hope that the Chinese government will now step in and, with the assistance of ICAO, continue the search based on updated information. China has the naval assets, manpower and money.

It only takes the will, and since most MH370 passengers were Chinese, that might influence a ­decision.

Byron Bailey, a commercial pilot with more than 45 years’ experience, was a senior captain with Emirates for 15 years, during which time he flew the same model Boeing 777 jet as Malaysia Airlines MH370

TICK TOCK miniscule DDDD (NFI) Chester..TICK TOCK indeed...MTF P2