Earlier this morning a South African radio station posted a story about a local family that found a piece of aircraft debris while on vacation in Mozambique in December.
18-year-old Liam Lotter has told East Coast Radio Newswatch while they were on holiday in Inhambane in December – he and his cousin came across what he describes as the “shiny object” while walking on the beach. They brought it back to KwaZulu-Natal. Lotter says it was only after seeing news reports last week about another piece of debris found on a sandbank off Mozambique that his family saw a possible link. Liam’s mother Candace Lotter has since been in contact with South African and Australian authorities.
The story included a couple of pictures:
UPDATE: On Friday, March 11 Reuters published more photos:
Here’s an image that provides a sense of scale:
The code “676EB” in the top photograph refers to an access panel hatch in the right-hand outboard flap of a 777. The images below show the equivalent structures on the left-hand side.
Given that no other 777 has gone missing at sea, and that the Réunion flaperon has been conclusively identified as coming from the missing flight, then it’s very hard to imagine that this part didn’t come MH370.
Given that after nearly two years only a single piece of debris had heretofore been found, it’s extraordinary that in the span of less than two weeks three pieces of possible MH370 debris have come to light.
First, of course, was the piece found by Blaine Alan Gibson on a Mozambique sand bar in late February:
Followed a few days later by reports that Johnny Begue, who found the flaperon later linked to MH370 in July of 2015, had found what might be another part of the plane:
One striking feature of these three latest finds, that many people have commented on, is the striking absence of barnacles, algae, or other forms of sea life. That’s in striking contrast to the flaperon:
Some have suggested that the pieces might have been grazed clean by crabs after making landfall, or scoured clean by the action of waves and sand. According to IB Times, one Mozambique official believes that Blaine’s piece probably did not come from MH370 for this reason:
Abreu was also quoted Friday by state news agency AIM, saying that any claim that the debris belonged to the missing Flight MH370 was “premature” and “speculative,” according to All Africa. He also expressed doubts that the debris may not be from the missing Boeing 777 as the object was too clean to have been in the ocean for the past two years. However, he reportedly said that “no aircraft which has overflown Mozambican airspace has reported losing a panel of this nature,” First Post reported, citing AIM.
Hopefully a thorough investigation by the authorities will clarify the issue.
Worth noting that the second Mozambique piece was found 125 miles south of the first one, while both of the Réunion pieces were found on the same beach.
@Oleksandr
That’s the whole point! They won’t find the LH parts because these sank with the plane.
Think about it, if you had to work it out, what the odds would be of recovering two, almost adjacent parts of the RH wing lift augmentation after a 14 month plus journey across the Indian Ocean, but nothing from the rest of the plane? If parts from the LH side had been knocked off, then they would have made the same journey. But they havn’t.
The other important point is the flap track fairing could not have detatched as a result of flutter, but only by impact with the water, and this strongly suggests that the flaperon was knocked off at the same time.
Victor,
“Automatic flight”, p.12, section “V/S – FPA switch”.
Citation:
• When the selected altitude is reached, the pitch mode changes to altitude
(ALT).
I think this is what I was asking: V/S and FPA change to ALT upon reaching specified altitude. Is my understanding correct?
@ROB and All
“They won’t find the LH parts because these sank with the plane.”
So many apparent coincidences. Did you know that the RH wing of 9M-MRO was damaged in China in 2012? The chance of that and only RH parts being found (which have genuinely drifted from a MH370 crash site) must be very small… Unless of course these parts were planted or there was a residual problem with that RH wing after the repair (or replacement?) which contributed to a crash… Who knows.
http://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=147571
Does anyone know whether the parts found in Mozambique have arrived in Canberra for analysis yet?
Oleksandr – About the shoe question – No one here wears shoes to the beach so if they started showing up, I mean the sort worn on a midnight plane to Beijing, I think people would have joined the dots.
SharkCaver – According to Wiki – the “Bunda Cliffs” represent a 100km stretch in South Australia. Is there debris hiding there at all – I wouldn’t like to bet on it. I see organized 4WD tours covering the sandy areas of the Bight operating continually.
Sea state? Always looks calmer from above I know but that doesn’t look too nasty to me? 100kms of such cliffs could be traversed quite quickly in those conditions. Is there anything stopping people from doing so? Would be a spectacular trip. What am I missing?
@AM2
That only the RH flap track fairing section and RH flaperon made it to the western side of the Indian Ocean is not a coincidence, but an observed fact. The RH wing tip damage is a coincidence, and only a coincidence. It’s not that unusual for an aircraft of this type to have a “minor” prang or two during its lifetime, and the pieces we’re talking would not have been affected by the wingtip event. We musn’t forget Mr Gibson’s NO STEP part, also from the right side, from thr RH horizontal stabilizor upper skin – is that a coincidence too?
I cannot see how anybody who suggests these parts might have been planted can really expect to be taken seriously? MH370 has truly spawned Conspiracy City!
Our “friend” Mr Liow says the parts should arrive in Canberra some time this week, hopefully by Saturday. He’s also let it be known that a Malaysian team of certified beach combers is being dispatched to Mozambique. He wants to stress that the investigation is going to be kept as transparent as possible. Seems some people have been casting doubts in this area.
@ROB
Keep in mind that the next piece of debris found still has a 50-50 chance of being from the right or left side of the aircraft. Don’t fall into the common trap of thinking that flipping three heads in a row favors the occurrence of a tail.
Sorry, I want to talk smart and bark with the big dogs and all I get are crappy assignments like calling fastener manufacturers.
@jeffwise
Assuming (as I do) that the search will be completed without finding MH370, I think the possibility of a false negative from a largely unprecedented and extraordinarily difficult search is much higher than the possibility that the satellite data is unreliable or has been misinterpreted.
Would you mind sharing why you think the searchers are infallible? Is there no possibility of human or detection error? Is there an unblemished record of success in this type (e.g. depth, remote location, size of area, roughness of terrain) of search? More to the point, is there any record of success in this type of search? Might the critics of the search technology have a point? Might the capabilities of the technology have been subject to a bit of puffing by the contractors? Might it have been defended a bit over-zealously by the ATSB in order to justify the huge expense? Might the searchers have tried actually retrieving some of the debris they found (other than their own TPL)?
I guess what I’m asking is, what makes you so sure the search results invalidate the satellite data instead of the other way around?
In any event, I’m grateful for the work that scientists like Don and Bobby are continuing to share. And I’m grateful to you for continuing to provide this forum even though not everyone you host agrees with your conclusions.
@Bruce
I don’t mind sharing even when I am not asked to share. It is a common misconception that the satellite data points to the current high priority search area. The satellite data is under constrained. What this means is that you MUST make assumptions relative to the flight dynamics in order to derive a terminus. The so-called high probability search area could be completely devoid of debris without invalidating the satellite data.
@Bruce, I don’t distrust the satellite data at all–it is the one piece of evidence telling us what happened during the last six hours of the flight. However, as I’ve been pointing out for quite a while now, one needn’t assume that the equipment generating the BFO signal was configured in the same way that it was on the ground. In fact, there is significant (and growing!) evidence that it was not. When I pointed out that such a scenario was technically feasible, I also pointed out that it predicted that no aircraft debris would be found in the southern Indian Ocean. This has turned out to be the case.
In 2014, I went on CNN over and over again saying that the accoustic pings were not coming from the black boxes and that a seabed search would come up empty. All the other on-air analysts said I was a knucklehead. In the end, the seabed search did come up empty. So was I right? Not really–according to Richard Quest I was “right but for the wrong reasons.”
At least he was more generous than the IG, who are still producing complex calculations explaining why they must have been right all along, and who cares what $130 million worth of seabed scanning shows.
@DennisW
Dennis, you have made a very valid point about the satellite data being under constrained, but it remains a good first order guide as to where the aircraft ended up that night. The validity of the DSTG’s Bayesian hotspot is dependent on the assumed range of possible cruising speeds. I know it’s obvious when you think about it, but increasing the assumed cruising speed will translate the hotspot westwards, reducing it sends it eastwards. But there are other clues. The maximum cruise range is useful for defining the possible range of flight paths.
That’s why I keep pestering the ATSB with my IGOGU/ISBIX/7th arc geodesic (yes, that’s right, flown by the FMC) It is flown at a constant Mach 0.81, doesn’t compensate for head/tailwinds, crosses all the arcs at the right places in the right times, and just grazes past the center of their hotspot. What’s not to like, I say.
@DennnisW, Calling fastener manufacturers is noble labor and it was much appreciated, though I guess we all neglected to thank you for it.
@ROB
Yes, there are quite a few “acceptable” variations on flight path themes. If one wants to get even more creative, and allow some pilot induced speed and heading variations you can reach a great many places. Personally I prefer routes further North since they can be reconciled with a motive. There are certainly no slam dunks out there.
@Gysbreght asked, “V/S and FPA change to ALT upon reaching specified altitude. Is my understanding correct?”
That is my understanding.
Sorry, it was @Oleksandr that asked, not @Gysbreght.
I still trust the satellite data as well as Inmarsat itself, it’s just the 3 “entities” involved communicating through the Classic Aero system where my trust wanes. Especially the AES/SDU and how it was operating post IGARI (was it spewing out correct info or was it compromised in some fashion). We already know a compensation had to be made with the GES, and who knows about “wobbly old IOR” up there. I still think at this point if different assumptions are married to it (ISAT data) then it may yield some results. Incidentally, when does IOR get retired or replaced with new equipment? Every time I think of IOR it reminds me of Sputnik.
Oleksandr,
What would some possibilities be of something technically impossible that could almost never happen that the crew couldn’t figure a way out of?
Wasir R,
Regarding the ANC, that has been brought up here in the past. My view of it, post IGARI across Malaysia they do A&N – C. In the Straits they do A with some questionable N – C. And after the FMT it’s all A – N & C. They cannot land, they cannot communicate, but they can fly straight to the SIO?
@ROB
My comment “So many apparent coincidences.” was sarcastic – sorry, I should have been clearer.
Your comment “That only the RH flap track fairing section and RH flaperon made it to the western side of the Indian Ocean is not a coincidence, but an observed fact.” is not necessarily true. We don’t know if any 9M-MRO debris is still lying around undiscovered on the E. shore of Africa or has been souvenired and undisclosed or re-used or just simply thrown away. On a trip to S. Africa I was surprised to see the re-use of various materials (wiring etc.) into tourist items.
I wish I was as confident as you seem to be that the plane crashed into the ocean. So many things just don’t seem right, especially the with-holding of flaperon analysis from the public (or even to ATSB?) that I’m staying on the fence.
@Gysbreght. “….I think that line is about 57 cm from the tip.” My estimate was scaled from the ruler in a perpendicular photo. I have now found measurements, from a CNN report; 35in X 22in. If right, 56 cm of flat is needed before meeting the tip curve. This would be possible, depending on the length of the curved section at the tip, if your approximate estimate is less than as measured, and/or the 22in is a rounding-up. If it were found possible, confirmation would be needed that there were no other contenders from the 777 or like aircraft.
Unfortunately the ‘as measured’ might be hard to get and I can find no photos or drawings which would do the trick.
PS Should it prove that it did come from the root; and if also the flange and/or bottom skin bend were validated, I think it would come from the right side not the left as I wrote before.
@ROB
>The validity of the DSTG’s Bayesian hotspot is dependent on the assumed range of possible cruising speeds
From my reading of the DSTG report the major constraint on predicted destinations is the manoeuvre model, that is the allowed changes of speed and heading (and the number of changes). The range of speeds output from the model is much tighter than the input, prior, range indicating the input is not driving the result. Similarly, it is stated that the calculated fuel range is also not a significant constraint on the predicted destinations.
Picking up on what DennisW said on parts probabilities, the random chance of three parts coming from the same side of the aircraft is 1 in 4, so not small – it’s got to be more like five parts before it gets below that 1 in 10 figure. There is a tendency for (possible) coincidences (here parts coming from apparently similar locations) to be seen as significant where there are many possible separate locations from which multiple parts could be found, hence increasing the probability.
The odds of 3 parts coming from the same side of the aircraft is (1/2)^3 = 1/8; 4 parts is 1/16; 5 parts = 1/32; 6 parts (Hillary Clinton territory) is 1/64.
There’s a nice new post on Duncan’s blog about a debris field around 32.5S and 97.8E, towards the end of March 2014.
I know it’s unlikely but reviewing the Weathergraphics High Res images for that location, you can see what could conceivably be a contrail (I’ve noted this before)
http://www.weathergraphics.com/malaysia/ioee-0000.gif
That’s the midnight image. The later images (half hour increments) are found here under East:
http://www.weathergraphics.com/malaysia/iozooms.shtml
It’s probably just a random cloud, but well, you never know I suppose.
Sorry link to Duncan:
http://www.duncansteel.com/
@Cheryl, You remind me of an oft-overlooked but interesting fact: that even Thales, which built the SDU, is unable to make sense of the BFO values at 18:25. This is a clear indication that something unorthodox was taking place.
@GUYS
Thanks for working out the odds, but this has to be an imprecise science, for now, I’m happy with 8 to 1. Better odds than I’d get for Mr Trump having the keys to the White House – intentionally controversial I confess.
Talking of coincidences….If they suffered a bizarre, unique technical problem, would they have then flown carefully along an FIR boundary? Then up the Malacca Strait, navigating via waypoints? Then turning south at another FIR. Are these coincidences too?
Is it a coincidence that this was a redeye flight, with the rookie F.O. Flying his first unmentored B777 assignment?
When you mark the flight path on a map, you get one overwhelming impression – he was making a run for it.
If you do a Sherlock Holmes and say to yourself “what would you do if you wanted to lose the plane for good?” you would be very hard pressed to come up with a better one than the one he took. When he said goodnight at IGARI, he could have gone anywhere within a radius of 3,300Nm of that point, but what did he do? He flew into the remotest, furthest area he could find, in darkness except for all but the last half hour. In my book that takes some planning! Noway is that a coincidence.
@Warren P
I think Richard is correct on the 1 in 4. The location of the first part should be regarded as a “prior” i.e. no significance relative to the notion of right or left. Given the location of the first part (right or left) what is the probability of the next part being from the same side? Then what is the probability of the third part being from the same side?
Looking at it that way you get one fourth. It gets back to the notion of how a problem is posed. If I ask what is the probability of flipping three sequential heads the answer is one eight as you say. If I ask what is the probability of flipping three sequential heads or tails the probability is one fourth since the result of the first flip is a “don’t care”.
And you can rule out technical faults. Because of its impressive ETOPS capabilities (designed in from the start) and because it was Boeing’s first Fly-by-Wire commercial airliner, the result is a belt and braces aircraft, and them some. There is overkill on the redundancy front.
If an aircraft suffers a disastrous technical problem, it almost invariably crashes within the first hour. It doesn’t fly a pre-planned course for another 7 hours.
Sorry guys, I know nobody likes a smart ass, but a touch of realism is long overdue here.
@Dennis, Richard, Warren
I think Richard and Warren were calculating two different things.
re: the R wing being damaged in 2012 and my comment in an earlier post … “The chance of that and only RH parts being found (which have genuinely drifted from a MH370 crash site) must be very small” I agree with Warren that the odds for 3 “random” parts found all coming from the R side is 1 in 8. However, IMO its unrealistic to make any odds (or probability) calculation for 3 R wing parts being found and stick by my guess that the probability is small.
@ROB
Implicit in your Shelock metaphor is a suicide/murder motive. While I agree that the diversion was deliberate and not the result of an accident or malfunction, I cannot find anything to suggest suicide/murder in Shah’s background. Nor can other people qualified to make that assessment.
The diversion, I believe, is far more likely to be politically motivated. In this scenario flying within reach of landing zones is more logical. The flight path almost certainly went to the Northeast after the FMT with a significant Eastward component. This direction is also much more compatible with the debris finds than a location South of 35S.
Brock is brewing up something relative to the drift models. I am anxious to see it.
My crystal ball says the search in the current area will be completed with a negative result, and that will be the end of it until either a whistleblower comes forward or conventional “feet on the street” investigative work comes up with something.
@ROB. Qantas QF32 was illustrative Rob. Three experienced captains took some hours to sort out what to do after an engine explosion. even then the biggest part of the turbine disc did not hit the aircraft, there were three highly experienced captains on the flight deck,they were at low level and it was daylight. Here you have one experienced pilot and for all we know, massive electrical damage and explosive decompression, with mist and smoke. It does seem possible.
The main reason to suppose this was not the way of it is that it does not explain the subsequent events including the navigation.
@David,
Not ruling out mechanical/electrical failure but the going dark at IGARI is extremely suspicious.
@Paul Sladen
Thank you!
Cheryl,
“What would some possibilities be of something technically impossible that could almost never happen that the crew couldn’t figure a way out of?”
I am more and more leaning towards this. Most of the crashes and near-misses happen due to hardware failure followed by human error. I was actually surprised to learn, for example, that internal ADIRU failures may not require immediate fix, but rather upon accumulation of failures up to a critical level acording to hardware self-assessment. Just for economical reasons!
The other potentially dangerous thing is a complex interaction of various systems. For example, GPS information is used by FMS, but rather to correct data from ADIRU. That is because ADIRU is more reliable but less accurate than GPS. Or another example, both ADIRU and SAARU use data from the same Pitot and static pressure sensors, but process this data independently.
ROB,
Re: “And you can rule out technical faults. Because of its impressive ETOPS capabilities…”
Just Google on ADIRU failures. Besides QF32, there were many other cases. The interesting case happened with Alitalia on June 25, 2005, from Milan to Heathrow. Two of three ADIRUs failed, and the crew switched off the healthy ADIRU by mistake, and then later could not align it. Interestingly, this caused failure of the landing gear lowering, so they had to use gravity. Eventually the crew declared “Mayday”, which was not recognized by ATT in Heathrow, also by mistake.
@ Jeff W: Thanks for the explanation of Richard Cole’s odds. I see what you mean, as there’s no a priori reason that the parts should come from the right side versus the left side. Thus, the newspaper articles that said that HRC’s win of 6 coin-flips in a row in Iowa were odds of 1/64, really, it should have been 1/32! 🙂
Still, if the 1/4 odds is used to argue that a pattern is not starting to form, I respectfully disagree that assessment. There are probably hundreds of parts in a 777 wing that are made of the honeycomb Al-composite that can float. However, of the two parts we can definitely locate they come from very nearly the same portion of the wing. The very next actuator fairing on the inboard side of the No. 7 fairing is the outboard flaperon (location zone 675), suggesting that the detachments of the flaperon and the 676EB panel resulted from the same proximate cause.
Here is a better diagram of the 676EB panel I was able to find in the 777 Aircraft Maintenance Manual (Chap. 6, p. 240):
[img]http://i.imgur.com/Eqo5Wn8.png[/img]
Comparing the diagram of the 676EB panel to the photos of the found panel, it seems that the relatively undamaged end is the front of the panel. Since it is the aft fairing panel, it would move to back in when the flap was deployed, leaving it extra vulnerable in the event of a ditching. The front end would likely act as a scoop, causing the front portion of the panel to peel off leaving the damage that we observe (front end undamaged, back end torn off).
Yes, this is slim pickings, but it is EMPIRICAL evidence nonetheless, and it supports the ditching scenario. As such, it is what it is until more countervailing evidence that contradicts what I just laid out is found.
As for Exner et al.’s highly THEORETICAL contention that the flaperon detached due to “fluttering” at high speeds, that is hard to believe for two reasons:
(1) The flaperon is not just a flap, it is an aileron in its own right, and not just any aileron–it is especially designed for high speed flight. The outboard aileron, as I understand it, is not used during high speed flight as it can cause the entire wing to twist enough to cause the opposite of the desired direction of motion: hence the location of the 657 flaperon inboard at the beefiest part of the wing. The flaperon would be the last piece of the wing that would detach due to excessive speeds.
(2) As Byron Bailey pointed out, B777s can be flown to quite close to Mach 1, but the drag increase would likely prevent the a/c from every going supersonic. Also, in the event of running out of fuel causing a dive, numerous simulators show that the a/c stalls, nosedives, recovers, stalls, nosedives, recovers, sort of like an improperly trimmed paper airplane, so we should never expect the B777 to exceed supersonic speeds anyway.
@ROB
“If you do a Sherlock Holmes and say to yourself “what would you do if you wanted to lose the plane for good?” you would be very hard pressed to come up with a better one than the one he took… He flew into the remotest, furthest area he could find, in darkness except for all but the last half hour.”
You would not be hard pressed to find a better one… literally ANY one that ends in darkness rather than daylight would be infinitely better if the goal was to disappear as you suppose. Therefore, the “disappear to the deeps” theories have (at least) one glaring logical inconsistency.
@ Phil – so phil….where the hell would you steer this thing..? ?
How is it that these parts have been in the water for a considerable time and have no marine growth on them ?
Nothing inside either in the delaminated images.
@ Phil – assuming you were guided by logical consistency ….
@Susie
Thanks for the interesting posting & links!
To me it looks a bit too irregular and (much) too big to be a contrail. Note that the grid is at 5 degrees interval, so roughly 500 km spacing.
The general area around 33 – 35S near the 7th arc deserves special attention though. In simulations it gives very smooth speed profiles and a near constant track after 19:41 UTC. (However, according to my calculations you have to start a bit further North than reported last radar contact would indicate to get there)
It is also the area “indicated” by Inmarsat through their example path in their JoN paper.
Don’t forget upper stages of rockets frequently fall into the Pacific – the third stage of the Proton Rocket that launched the ExoMars probe fell into the Pacific yesterday (14/3/16). The first and second stages of the Proton ended up on land (possibly in Kazakstan.
The words ‘no step’ make it unlikly to be Russian but where do American & European upper stages fall ?
Susie,
We all know about Duncan’s site, as many of us migrated from there to Jeff’s platform. Unfortunately the value of Duncan’s site has dropped to 1% of its original value. let me know when they move to the north of 32S.
“where the hell would you steer this thing..? ?”
What about Pacific or even SCS?
@George
I’m not suggesting steering the search elsewhere, if that’s what you’re asking; I’m simply pointing out an inconsistency from those who comment with utter confidence that “disappearing the plane in the ocean” was the obvious motive. Ending the flight in daylight greatly jeopardizes such a plan, since the plane would be visible by ship, plane and satellite.
If you’re referring to steering the plane… an identical course crashing an hour earlier in total darkness would seem to be a significantly better option, wouldn’t it?
Of course, daylight would make sense in conjunction with an attempted “ease it into the water intact” plan, as a visual on the water would be required… but again, that dramatically increases the chance of being spotted.
@ Phil: if there was a goal to vanish without a trace, it would have been infinitely less desirable to crash in complete darkness, rather than to attempt a ditching at first light; the former would be sure to leave a telltale debris field, whilst the latter would only be expected to leave a few bits from the trailing edges of the control surfaces. The physical evidence that’s been recovered thus far apparently tends to confirm the latter hypothesis.
@Warren
As I said, daylight makes sense if ditching intact is the goal… again, at the considerable expense of being spotted by ship, plane or satellite. One can certainly argue the cost/benefit of each option from a planning perspective; point being, the supposed motive of “disappearing to the deep” UNSEEN, which is the key to the plan, is not as unambiguous or infallible as the original poster I was responding to makes it out to be.
Isn’t 1 out of 8 based on the events being random? If some large pieces of the right wing came off while the a/c was in the air but the left wing was shattered into smaller pieces at impact with the water, I wouldn’t expect LW & RW pieces to drift to the same location.
As for the possibility of pieces coming off in flight during a high speed dive, one only needs to look at China Airlines 006 here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Airlines_Flight_006
Or Silk Air 185
Instead of a disappearing motive, how about just trying to avoid populated areas?
@Warren Platts. This does not undo your general observation about the exposure of 676EB with flaps down but for interest I notice that the like inboard cover is more vulnerable as a scoop. Forgive the size of this!
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=boeing+777+flaps&rlz=1C1ASUT_enAU597AU600&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=653&tbm=isch&imgil=WiEqSPiSa4TifM%253A%253BOgoTzfXppwB6LM%253Bhttps%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.youtube.com%25252Fwatch%25253Fv%2525253DpSHuIeD5ghM&source=iu&pf=m&fir=WiEqSPiSa4TifM%253A%252COgoTzfXppwB6LM%252C_&usg=__-Qcza4xnLDZzmc4XwdhqNA_QSOE%3D&ved=0ahUKEwjS6fnc18PLAhVJo5QKHezCAd0QyjcIJA&ei=RoXoVtKuHMnG0gTshYfoDQ#imgrc=MPuwH6Uh5FzAmM%3A
SharkCaver – after doing some searches the only instances I can find of people standing at the base of the Bunda Cliffs(Australian Bight) did indeed rope down there to tag Sea Lions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeBi85Prm-Y
But as an endangered/recovering population their numbers are surveyed(only 17,000 animals in the whole country), and I assume by boats skimming the cliff face? Something people will be doing recreationally also, even if that does sound a bit wayward, but who is stopping them? Last time I was at the Nullabor Roadhouse – close to the Bight – I was stretching the legs when in from the harsh desert rolled a gleaming procession of vintage Jaguars. I stood there and blinked a few times and thought now why the hell bring those beauties all the way out here? Same thing; no one to stop them.
In summary, I don’t see anywhere along this coast that doesn’t see human activity.
Sea lions would only be surveyed at their rookeries, that comprise only a tiny portion of the entire Bight, I’m pretty sure. Anyways, if you’re out there in your little Zodiak looking for sea lions or birds, and you see a piece a piece of white junk wedged in some rocks, you’ll probably not stop to get it, as (a) that is not what you are being paid for; (b) it’d be kind of dangerous: probably you couldn’t safely beach your skiff, so you’d have to have one guy on the tiller, while the other guy jumps out at the right moment, runs and grabs the piece, and then tries to get back on the bobbing Zodiak, all the while praying you don’t break off your propeller on a rock…
Great fun to be sure, but hard to explain to your boss! 🙂
On the other hand, a dedicated search team of crazy adventurers could do it, but you’d want to have at least two inflatable skiffs in case one gets wrecked.
@ Dave: thanks for the picture. That’s about the best photo of the flap support fairing in action that I’ve seen.
Looks like the inboard fairing would come off as well. No doubt the flaps would have been eaten up as well. Check out photos of the Hudson River aircraft after they fished it out. They’re mostly gone.