Today, March 8, 2016, Malaysia’s Ministry of Transport released its second annual interim report into the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, as required by international treaty. This document was highly anticipated within the community of independent MH370 investigators, as many of us hoped that it would close some of the huge gaps in our understanding. Unfortunately, it was only three pages long and contained no new information about the disappearance itself. Instead it merely restated the most basic facts of the case and indicated that a more complete final report would be issued “in the event wreckage of the aircraft is located or the search for the wreckage is terminated, whichever is the earlier.”
Given that Martin Dolan, chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, has said that the search will end if nothing is found by July, and that the high-probability zones of the search area have already been scoured, it seems likely that we will have to wait at least four more months before a substantial reckoning is made.
The new report is not entirely devoid of information, however. For one thing, it acknowledges that while the main wreckage of the plane has not been found, “a flaperon was recovered in the French island of Réunion on 29 July 2015 and was determined to have been a part of the MH370 aircraft.” No mention is made of two pieces recently discovered in Mozambique and Réunion which may or may not have come from MH370. A cryptic undated press release recently issued by the Ministry of Transport both suggests and denies that the Mozambique piece came from a 777. So the possible relevance of these new finds remains ambiguous.
The final page contains a list of eight subjects on which “the Malaysian ICAO Annex 13 Safety Investigation Team for MH370” (aka “the team”) will be working on in preparation for the final report. One of these items is “Wreckage and Impact Information (following the recovery and verification of a flaperon from the aircraft).” Again, no mention is made of the new pieces, and the emphasis on “impact information” suggests that the focus will be on what the deformation of the flaperon indicates about the nature of the crash, rather than what the marine life found on the flaperon tells us about how the flaperon floated and where it drifted. On the bright side, the inclusion of this item suggests that the French are sharing information about the flaperon with Malaysian authorities, and so the public will learn at least something about this important clue in the foreseeable future.
Another item is “Flight Crew Profile.” As it becomes increasingly likely that the plane did not fly south on autopilot alone, the possibility that the plane was flown on a suicide mission by one of its two pilots comes increasingly to the fore. The “Factual Information” report issued a year ago indicated that the captain’s psychological condition had been evaluated, and it was determined that he showed no signs of suicidality. It seems to me that the inclusion of this item suggests that investigators are looking at this topic more closely.
Other items include “Air Traffic Services Operations” and “Organisation and Management Information of the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA), Malaysia and MAS.” These, hopefully, will examine some of the curious goings-on that occurred after MH370 disappeared, such as the fact that Malaysia Airlines told air traffic controllers who were looking for the plane that it was flying over Cambodia. Likewise, the item “Aircraft Cargo Consignment” should explain why the plane’s manifest showed that it was carrying a large quanitity of mangosteens, when this fruit was not in season at the time.
While these latter investigations may shed light on chronic irregularities at the airline and at the civil aviation department, I don’t think that they will tell us much about MH370’s disappearance. Others, no doubt, will disagree.
Finally, one of the biggest takeaways for me in the report is the notable absence of radar as a topic of discussion. There is a great deal of uncertainty and ambiguity surrounding the primary radar trace that MH370 made after it turned around at IGARI and headed west toward the Andaman Sea. We hoped that some of these riddles would be cleared up in today’s report; instead, it seems likely that they will never be resolved.
We are aware of Malaysian government’s disgusting behaviour and incompetence but what the heck is wrong with the French ? Why are they not sharing their analysis/conclusions on the flaperon ?
The Malaysians have published their 2nd Interim Statement. That is a formality, not a factual report. We are still waiting for Factual Information No. 2. What exactly was the Malaysian reply to Victor’s radar questions?
I’m starting to think that the best we can really hope for is a report that is reasonably convincing, even if it’s not actually true or accurate.
Facts and evidence notwithstanding, as long as they eventually produce something I/the wider public can almost persuade myself to believe…I don’t know but I sense that we might have to make do, and tell ourselves it’s over and no more can be done.
I hope, vehemently, that I underestimate these folks.
Well, I feel like a fool getting up early for that.
@Gysbreght: Here was Malaysia’s reply to my radar questions:
***
Dear Mr. Iannelo (sic),
Good day.
Many thanks for your mail of 25 September 2015.
Our sincere apologies for responding later than now. Please be assured that your queries are being studied carefully and will be addressed in our next report on 8th March 2016.
Best regards and have a pleasant weekend.
Safety Investigation Team for MH370
***
This was obviously a complete lie.
And here were some questions some of us expected to be answered in an Interim Report. (What was released is not a report. It is a statement.) The questions were solicited by reporter Marnie O’Neill.
http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/incidents/mh370-eight-questions-on-missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-that-need-answers/news-story/c72cfb2b0ff57c96483ae6028bc954f5
Commiserations on such a pitiful response, Mr Iannello. Thank you for trying.
@jeffwise: You are an optimist.
The Malaysians have demonstrated that they will release only the bare minimum of information as required by their interpretation of ICAO Annex 13. My prediction is that other than the serial number evidence linking the flaperon to 9M-MRO, there will be nothing else of significance presented in the Final Report about the flaperon.
As for the French, they’ve had every opportunity to publicize the results of their analyses of the flaperon. We now know that they were not silent in deference to this interim statement by Malaysia. We can only conjecture about the reasons for their silence.
Perhaps publication of F.I.#2 is delayed because key officials were travelling to Maputo?
@Gysbreght: There will be no FI #2. The Malaysians made it clear in this Interim Statement that the next release will be the Final Report, which will likely be issued after the search is terminated in July 2016.
Indeed the critical information about the mangosteens cargo of the mh370 and the ground radar data which could show where the plane has flown agter igari is still not there. This leaves scenarios as cargo (gold) theft and involved corruption (cover up) still open. This information needs to be checked for facts and could lead to the “unknowns whats and whys” of the mh370. The second report doesn’t indicate that what really happened will ever be known
An international boycott of all air travel might expedite MH370 information flow.
Not surprised as to the deafening silence and general reluctance to share information. After all geo politics can be a huge millstone around one’s neck especially if the case involves the biggest gorilla on the block and especially if one’s puny self is subservient to that gorilla for bananas . Go figure.
According to ICAO Annex 13, Paragraph 6.6, from Nov 2001:
“The State conducting the investigation should release the Final Report in the shortest possible time and, if possible, within twelve months of the date of the occurrence. If the report cannot be released within twelve months, the State conducting the investigation should release an interim report on each anniversary of the occurrence, detailing the progress of the investigation and any safety issues raised.”
It is written in the form of a recommendation which is why the word “should” is used rather than “shall”.
By contrast, in the Interim Statement, Malaysia quotes Annex 13 as follows:
“If the report cannot be made publicly available within twelve months, the State conducting the investigation shall make an interim statement publicly available on each anniversary of the occurrence, detailing the progress of the investigation and any safety issues raised.”
Notice the substitution of “interim report” with “interim statement”.
Do we know the exact language of the most recent version of Annex 13?
well, so may be the plane used some virtual mangosteens as extra fuel?
@Yeah, Brock, great suggestion! I dislike long distance flights anyway. I always get sick after a prolonged flight. Let’s take to the much healthier and far more enjoyable ocean liners like in the old days with a bag full of books or at least an e-book reader as a traveling companion. We might even spot dolphins 🙂
Another possibility: we could ask Iceland to turn on again their volcano with the unspeakable name which grounded air traffic for weeks on end and people had to resort to alternative transportation methods. The drawback: there will be many more traffic related accidents and the number of victims might easily surpass the 239 people who were on the plane.
@Brock
Unfortunately the small number of people who are actually outraged by the Malay “report” would go completely unnoticed on the world stage. It is this very reality that inspired the unibomber to send letters. Might be a bad metaphor since the unibomber was a mathematician, and mathematicians tend to be weird. 🙂
@Wazir Roslan:
You are right there, buddy!
There is indeed a certain strain of people only too quick to throw all the blame at the feet of the Malaysians.
But what I personally got from listening to Hishamuddin and Najib Razak in their press conferences nearly 2 years ago (gasp, time flies!) was a sense of that their deep, uncontrived sadness; but much more than that, a feeling they were troubled by some indescribably heavy secret which circumstances wouldn’t allow them to share.
There are many here and elsewhere who only too readily assign blame because it fits their world view (and I don’t mean Victor or Jeff). But these very same people would become defensive if it was suggested that the truth may lie closer to home – a Western power using some intermediary (Saudi Arabia) to pay ‘hush money’ to the Malaysians, for example… (ok, a lazy example).
I just don’t think its very likely for a government of a reputable nation to be pre-occupied with chasing gold-plated mangosteens on aeroplanes, no matter how valuable they may be. More likely is the possibility that the Malaysians are at the mercy of powers far, far greater than themselves. For once, they may have threatened to come clean, only to find another one of their planes blasted out the sky.
Who knows? But this latest report/statement simply reiterates that this indeed seems to be a conspiracy of the highest order, and as Susie perfectly sums up, “we might have to make do and tell ourselves… no more can be done.”
@Sajid UK, while I agree with you that we should keep an open mind and also consider that there may be obfuscation attemps and cover-ups committed by the Western alleys (the French treatment of the whole flaperon affair is very suspicious), I strongly object to the characterization of Malaysia as a reputable state at the mercy of higher powers. That might be true for the Malay people but certainly not for the current regime under Najib, which is as disreputable as they come. A lot of the reluctance to blame Shah stems from the fact that – whatever his faults may have been – he had the guts to fight the corrupt Najib-regime.
I should add that I mostly criticize the word “reputable” in connection with the current Malaysian rulers. I wouldn’t exclude that they are indeed restricted in their actions by higher powers.
@Sajid UK & Wazir Roslan: The possibility that Malaysia might be a pawn in a conflict between much larger powers is something many of us consider. That doesn’t mean we should give Malaysia a pass when it has not met its basic obligations of public disclosure.
@Victor: re: “no free pass”: agree 100% with your entire post. If I come across as “pro-Malaysian”, it is only out of a desire for perspective and balance; their government is regularly blamed for any and all search dysfunction/obfuscation. But I share your view that MY is, at minimum, HELPING muddy the waters.
@Dennis: every time the topic MH370 (and my involvement in it) comes up in my professional or private circles, I consistently hear…
1) surprisingly intense interest
2) skepticism this flight could actually disappear this completely, for this long
3) flowing from 2, a view that we are not being told the whole story
4) flowing from 3, outrage at being kept in the dark
I concede the possibility of selection bias (anyone who either doesn’t give a rip or smells nothing fishy would admittedly do well to avoid me…) – but I don’t advertise my audits – my friends and colleagues SEEK dialogue. They THIRST for answers.
Was it Susie who suggested a “lottery”, whereby everyone contributed $10 apiece, with half going to fund a proper investigation? I submit that, if everyone fully TRUSTED where that money went, such a campaign would raise $100 million overnight.
A boycott achieves a similar result, without the need to trust anyone: without concentrating power in any one investigative body, it applies economic pressure to leverage the excavation of truth.
@Brock, while I think a lot of people would gladly give 10 dollars to an entirely trustworthy fund (although trustworthy might be the difficulty here) which is then used for trying to uncover the truth, I highly doubt that anyone who needs to travel long distance would stop to fly – for many reasons. While I would gladly switch to ocean liners (that wasn’t meant flippantly at all) I could neither afford time nor the huge amounts of money it would cost. And I wouldn’t even apply pressure to a specific point. THE airline industry is too vague. If someone can afford such a boycott he might feel better somehow but would achieve nothing. And even if a considerable amount of people would boycott flying and take to the streets instead, the accident statistics would rise and many more people than have been on the plane would be killed (when the American people feared flying after 9/11 and took to the roads instead – especially during the Thanksgiving weekend – exactly that happened). Even if it would help to discover the truth behind mh370, it isn’t worth that particular sacrifice.
But I guess you weren’t completely serious.
Sy Gunson and Chris Goodfellow have launched a $5 million crowdfunding appeal saying they can find MH370. They both say that the plane didn’t go up the Malacca Strait, but went directly south from the Igari turn around and flew over Indonesia to the SIO. I don’t know why Sy Gunson doesn’t contribute here, but I presume he’s banned because of this theory.
Anyway, like many others, today I was disappointed with the report, but not surprised. Heck, we’d all have been interested in what the French thought about the flaperon. The other two recent discoveries have been treated by the authorities seemingly with a lack of interest…unlike us!
I found this comment on the UK Guardian and found it very good.
“Despite all the evidence pointing to pilot intervention, it is still assumed that 1) if it was terrorism it makes no sense to simply make a plane dissappear or 2) if it was pilot suicide, why go to all the trouble and not simply fly the plane directly into the sea. Thus we have a dilemma, as both of these theories seem improbable making pilot error seem unlikely. But this is despite all the technical info like turning off the transponder suggesting that there must have been human intervention.
However, I am very surprised that nobody so far has suggested that it could have beeb a hijacking gone wrong. In the post 9/11 world we often assume that hijacking means death – forgetting that in the 1970s, hijackings were often done to simply bring attention to a cause – look at Dawsons field. So why couldn’t this be the same? So let’s look at motive: 1) this happened the exact day (just a few hours after) Anwar (ex deputy pm of Malaysia) was sentenced again for sodomy – an explosive case in malaysia – just look up the past few elections in malaysia to see how important this is. 2) the pilot was a keen anwar activist 3) anwars sentancing was practically ignored internationally.
Conclusion: pilot hijacked plane to fly it somewhere else (hence the odd manouvers to avoid detection). The intention being to bring world attention to anwars fate, but crucially not to hurt the passengers (just land it somewhere – you can imagine how much attention it would get). However something went wrong – most likely crew or passengers fought back, oxygen was switched off in commotion, everybody passed out – flew till run out of fuel. Case closed. ..”
@Ed, Yes, Gunson was banned here, let’s leave it at that. As for the hijacking-gone-wrong theory, it has been one of the more popular ideas discussed here, and as long as hope remains that the wreckage may be found in the current search zone, it may turn out to be true. But if July comes and goes without the plane being found I think we will have to rule it out along with other variations of the “ghost ship” theme.
@Brock
I’ve been involved in a couple of Boycotts related to my hobby of motorcycle racing. Despite a much larger set of stakeholders than our group here, it did not end well. Both turned out to be much more inconvenient to the people doing the lobbying than the people being lobbied against. I don’t have any sensible estimate, but a critical mass is needed for a lobbying tactic to work. Our group is simply to small to have any influence.
I’m not sure I would fund a group searching for the aircraft based on the information we have now. If something truly compelling were to present itself, I would gladly write a check.
Victor,
After your comprehensive review of this rep… statement, I can only note one more difference: “release” vs “publicly available”.
On the positive side they finally formally explicitly admitted that the flaperon is a fragment of 9M-MRO… Ambiguity is eliminated.
But why did the French judge visit KL? Did the recent two fragments mix up someone’s plans? Perhaps that is a reason for their silence.
OK, thanks for acknowledging me Jeff. So, the two theories we still have here, are rogue pilot, and spoof hi-jacking. The spoof hi-jacking is because someone must have been down in the EE bay?? Can you confirm for me, that for the events to have occurred, either one of the pilots, or somebody else had to have been down in the EE bay. I just re-read your article on the EE bay being interfered with by sophisticated hi-jackers, i’m getting confused, and my mind is going round and round trying to make sense of everything. Cheers, Ed.
A couple more observations on the “no step” panel
(A more convenient source of images is a recent article on duncansteel.com)
Re locating panel candidates:
– the no step print indicates its location and orientation wrt to designed “yes step” areas on the upper side of horizontal airfoils (main wing or horizontal stabilisers)
– the long outer edge of the fragment parallel with the fastener line appears to be the design edge of the panel, as opposed to being a break line. There is evidence of some kind of black glue or sealant on that edge near the remaining fastener. There is also some remnant of a spilled over “blob” of that substance on the under side.
– the outer edge near the row of empty fastener holes also appears to be a design edge (not break line), due to its linearity and absence of raggedness or curved nature as is found on all other edges.
– the “changing width” or step in location of the angled portion of the thick to thin transition, as well as the fastener line (see @Gysbreght’s post), seems to be repeated again on the outer design edge.
The above indicates that the “changing width” feature ought to be found on an outer flange edge, rather then an internal mid channel, of a panel. (@RussellM, I hope that helps narrow down the list of possible panel candidates for a drawing search)
Further observations:
– the missing hilock fasteners in the row of empty holes (and the single empty hole next to the remaining fastener) are interesting in that the holes seem to be intact. If we assume, that hiLOCK (emphasis deliberate) fasteners do not come apart without deliberate action (is that a fair assumption?), then it is hard to explain the missing fasteners from intact holes. Short of their heads snapping off due to high impact forces, there should be no intact empty holes. Heads snapping off seems unlikely since the C(or G)FRP is presumably less strong than the hilock fastener and separation would imply breaking the panel along the line of holes (as per part of that panel) or stripping the hole to a larger diameter to let the fastener pull through. Yet, there is no such stripping of holes apparent. If “no step” proves to be from a B777, the question of whether hilock fasteners can work themselves loose during vibration or flutter, must be answered in the positive to permit that B777 to have been MH370
– the image showing the internals and aluminium honeycomb has a significant portion of the honeycomb missing leaving a rather clean patch with minimal remnants of glue and absolutely no aluminium. There is a similarly shaped patch of “sandy” appearance on the inside of the bent up outer skin layer. Not sure what to make of that. It could indicate a faulty glue, one that is still sticky (uncured) on the bent up skin.
– the “no step” panel has an elongated narrow hole (impact damage?) on its underside with three gouges/scrape marks leading into/out of it. To me it looks like it would have required high forces to create. Interesting to note is, that the flaperon images had very similar holes with scrapes IIRC. Albeit, at least one of those holes appeared to be missing in one photo, which would indicate, that it was created “on the beach” through man handling it. (Hmm, maybe I should go back to those photos and verify my recollection.)
@MuOne: You wrote, “the missing hilock fasteners in the row of empty holes (and the single empty hole next to the remaining fastener) are interesting in that the holes seem to be intact.” Great point.
@Ed: Yes, I think that in order to perpetrate a hijack you’d have to get into the E/E bay. If one of the pilots took the plane, they could have turned the SDU on and off again by isolating the left AC bus from the cockpit.
OK, thanks for that Jeff, and apologies if i’m struggling to keep up. Cheers, ed.
@Susie
“I hope, vehemently, that I underestimate these folks.”
I doubt that’s possible, unfortunately.
@All
I have noticed a subtle change in the sentence about “lost radar contact” between first and second interim statement which could be relevant. The first statement says:
“Less than 40 minutes after take-off Air Traffic Controllers lost
radar contact with the aircraft after passing waypoint IGARI.”
The new interim statement says:
“Less than 40 minutes after take-off, radar contact with the
aircraft was lost after passing waypoint
IGARI.”
@MuOne:
I don’t think the “NO STEP” panel can be one of the four upper panels of the Forward Torque Box of a B777 horizontal stabilizer. In the document kindly provided by RussellM all four panels have a straight trailing edge. The trailing edge of the Mozambique find is clearly not straight. There are no fastener holes on the extended centerline of the intact holes. The remaining fastener, the two holes on either side of it, and the fracture line where the remaing fastener holes were located are on a parallel line outside of that extended centerline. The flange containing the fastener holes does not change in width, it is recessed over part of its length.
I think that the seemingly intact holes (which can be seen on many parts of the MH17 wreckage) can be explained by the failure of the fastener heads. These fasteners, like rivets and bolts, are designed to resist shearing, and have much less strength to resist pulling out. The function of the panels that form a Torque Box is to resist shear loads, because the function of the torque box is to augment the torsional stiffness of the horizontal stabilizer, while the center torque box (the “step here” area) takes the bending loads.
@Niels: That is a subtle change, but for those of us very interested in studying the turn, the potential implications are huge. Could this be the admission that the turn after IGARI was not captured by ANY radar, including military? Might this be their lame attempt to answer one of the questions I posed to them? If true, the odds that the unidentified target was not MH370 increases dramatically. And it would also mean that the radar data supplied to the DSTG for its analysis was inferred rather than measured.
And still it seems to be a total non-issue for the spectator govts? though it never was clear who was spectating and who wasn’t, we just know no one sees it as their role to turn any screws – in our direction anyway. Malaysian govt could well be under a thumb?
@Gysbreght,
I agree re “recess”, hence my change of phrase to “step in location” of (in your better words:) te centre lines of the fastener rows. I was carrying my initial “change of width” phrase to make the cross reference to my earlier post more obvious, in which I hadn’t yet realised that it was not the mid channel but an outside edge of the panel.
Re rivets and bolts being designed for taking shear loads, I beg to disagree. Both rivets and bolts are designed for their capacity to pull parts together. The shear strength of such joints comes from the compressing force (of the fastener on the joint panels) inducing friction forces between the faces of the joint panels. Rivets and bolts are prone to shear failure, if their compression force is insufficient to induce enough friction forces.
You maybe thinking of shear pins, which are a whole different cattle of fish. They are much more substantial and usually have very tight tolerances on hole to pin fits to avoid “looseness” in the pin to panel joints.
@MuOne:
” The shear strength of such joints comes from the compressing force (of the fastener on the joint panels) inducing friction forces between the faces of the joint panels.”
Not in my book. Although I’m not an expert on structures, I know what I’m talking about.
@MuOne and @Gysbreght: If not otherwise retained, friction would keep the nut on the bolt, but would not contribute to the strength of a (properly-designed) fastened joint.
@MuOne:
Maxan Murphy on PPRuNe prvided this Spec Sheet of similar fasteners:
http://www.jet-tek.com/hi-lok-pins/hl1013.pdf
You can see that the shear strength is about twice the tension strength.
Today I submitted the following Freedom of Information Act request to the NTSB:
“Please produce any and all non-identical documents and electronically stored information—including writings, models, drawings, graphs, charts, photographs, sound recordings, images, and other data or data compilations—stored in any medium from which information can be obtained either directly or, if necessary, after translation by you into a reasonably usable form (“data”) which comprise, refer to or relate to any or all radar recording, radar tracking, radar traces, radar returns or any other radar information or radar data pertaining to (1) aircraft 9M-MRO operating as Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 on March 7 and/or 8, 2014 or (2) any other unidentified aircraft operating in or on any or all of the Malay Peninsula, Gulf of Thailand, South China Sea, Straits of Malacca, Andaman Sea and Indian Ocean on March 7 and/or 8, 2014.”
I submitted a FOIA request to the NTSB in May of 2014 for ISAT information based on a list Mike Exner prepared. It was denied on the grounds that information relating to international investigations still in progress were exempt until completed or two years had elapsed, whichever comes first.
Now that two years have gone by, I’m hoping for a better result.
Well I was all ready tonight to sink my teeth into a long, detailed report possibly revealing some new information, needless to say I am as disappointed as everyone else is. But I refuse to say, “Les jeux sont faits, rien ne va plus.” I am NOT giving up hope, something may break yet despite this close mouthed, close to the vest m.o.
I agree a lot of what they are looking at may in the long run improve operations and ATC communications of the agencies involved that night if nothing else. Of the 8 points, I actually like the “Airworthiness & Maintenance” one they are looking at.
As far as the “Flight Crew Profile” nothing new to me. If they are still looking at that is there really anything there? If it hasn’t surfaced to now is it even there?
@ir1907 and @All
It also seems to me that the two finds in the last 2 weeks may have changed everything; perhaps Malaysia has decided not to release the FI because of this? I should wait for official analysis of these fragments before saying any more on this but hey, one may be going to Malaysia and one to France so how long do we have to wait? Looks like they were planted to me. Blaine may have been set up. Looks ugly.
@littlefoot
“I should add that I mostly criticize the word “reputable” in connection with the current Malaysian rulers. I wouldn’t exclude that they are indeed restricted in their actions by higher powers.”
Yes, agreed! The (Malaysian) government’s coyness may stem from constraints placed upon them from ‘above and beyond’ (wherever or whoever that is), and it may be unrelated to any ‘state corruption.’ Then again, state corruption may be driving force – we just don’t know for sure. But in entertaining the latter, we shouldn’t mindlessly chuck out the possibility of the former.
@Gysbreght,
Not quite twice. The largest D in the table has the tension pounds (force?) at about 71% of the “double” shear pounds.
I am not familiar with those units as I am coming from a metric back ground. And it is not clear to me what tension and “double” shear pounds represent. I am guessing that you could hang up to the specified weight (pounds)from the pin before it shears or snaps.
Anyhow, all those absolute values are irrelevant for the question of what snaps first, the hilock fastener or the CFRP.
If my interpretation above is right, I get a tensile strength of about 118,500 PSI for the 1/4 hilock. Mr Google translates that into 820MPa
My first google search hit on CFRP properties (I make no claim whether that hit represents aerospace material) puts its tensile and compressive strength between 570 and 600MPa, well below that of hilock, and more importantly, its in plane shear strength at a mere 90MPa.
http://www.performance-composites.com/carbonfibre/mechanicalproperties_2.asp
In other words, I’d expect the CFRP to give way long before the hilock fails.
@AM2, My impression is that Malaysia never intended to release anything more informative than this. But I agree, these finds do have the potential to change everything.
@Bruce Lamon, Fantastic, that’s great to hear. Obviously all of us will be dying to hear what (if anything) they come back with. In the event they don’t give you anything, maybe we should do a Kickstarter to file a FOIA lawsuit, that I think would give the most bang-for-buck of any crowdsourced attempt to find MH370.
From The Star online, 8th March
“Malaysia is waiting for France’s decision on whether a piece of debris found on Reunion Island two days ago can be released to the authorities investigating missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.
Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai (pic) said a French judge is expected to give a decision within the next two days.”
http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2016/03/08/mh370-france-to-decide-over-handing-of-second-object-found-on-reunion-island/
@MuOne,
The panel is GFRP not CFRP. It’s an aerodynamic fairing section, not part of primary structure.
You will probably find that the fasteners have pulled thru the panel; this is evident in the reverse image of the hole next to the intact fastener.
OZ
@MuOne,
Forgot to mention; the dark stuff would be sealant.
OZ
@VictorI,
You wrote: “@MuOne and @Gysbreght: If not otherwise retained, friction would keep the nut on the bolt, but would not contribute to the strength of a (properly-designed) fastened joint.”
I take that as a dig at my prowess as a qualified mechanical engineer ;o).
To the subject matter, while true for a joint loaded in axial direction of the fastener, the opposite is true for joints loaded in shear direction (parallel to the joint).
A joint properly designed for shear strength (plates sliding off each other in normal to bolt axis direction) must rely on the friction forces between the joint plates:
Due to manufacturing inaccuracies, in a bolted joint (of multiple bolts) only a small sub set (theoretically only one) of all the bolts would be shear loaded, due to form fit errors. Hence, only a small number of bolts would bear the full shear load of that joint. Given enough shear load, one after the other bolt would be over-stressed, shear, the joint would slip to the next form fit bolt, transfer the full load to it, and so on. The whole joint would quickly fail.
It is the individual bolt’s tensioning force which pulls the joint’s faces together and creates the friction force (generally a large fraction of the tension force) for that one bolt. That mechanism is additive over the whole set of all bolts and outweighs the sum of shear strengths of the small sub set of bolts that are actually in form fit at anyone time.
Anyhow, I think this discussion does not contribute anything to the search, so I’ll leave it at that.