After French authorities retrieved the MH370 flaperon from Réunion Island, they flew it to the Toulouse facility of the DGA, or Direction générale de l’Armement, France’s weapons development and procurement agency. Here the marine life growing on it was examined and identifed as Lepas anatifera striata, creatures which have evolved to live below the waterline on pieces of debris floating in the open ocean.
Subsequently, flotation tests were conducted at the DGA’s Hydrodynamic Engineering test center in Toulouse. The results are referenced in a document that I have obtained which was prepared for judicial authorities by Météo France, the government meteorological agency, which had been asked to conduct a reverse-drift analysis in an attempt to determine where the flaperon most likely entered the water. This report was not officially released to the public, as it is part of a criminal terrorism case. It is available in French here.
Pierre Daniel, the author of the Météo France study, notes that the degree to which a floating object sticks up into the air is crucial for modeling how it will drift because the more it protrudes, the more it will be affected by winds:
This translates as:
The buoyancy of the piece such as it was discovered is rather important. The studies by the DGA Hydrodynamic Engineering show that under the action of a constant wind, following the initial situation, the piece seems able to drift in two positions: with the trailing edge or the leading edge facing the wind. The drift angle has the value of 18 degrees or 32 degrees toward the left, with the speed of the drift equal to 3.29% or 2.76% of the speed of the wind, respectively.
The presence of barnacles of the genus Lepas on the two sides of the flaperon suggest a different waterline, with the piece being totally submerged. In this case we derive a speed equaly to zero percent of the wind. The object floats solely with the surface current.
This suggests a remarkable state of affairs.
Inspection of the flaperon by Poupin revealed that the entire surface was covered in Lepas, so the piece must have floated totally submerged—“entre deux eaux,” as Le Monde journalist Florence de Changy reported at the time. Yet when DGA hydrodynamicists put the flaperon in the water, it floated quite high in the water, enough so that when they blasted it with air it sailed along at a considerable fraction of the wind speed.
As point of reference, Australia’s CSIRO calculates that that the drifter buoys that it uses to gather ocean-current data pick up a 1.5% contribution from the wind. Here is a picture of one such drifter, kindly supplied to me by Brock McEwen. You can see that more than half of the spherical buoy is out of the water.
It is physically impossible for Lepas to survive when perched up high in the air. Yet the buoyancy tests were unequivocal. So Daniel pressed on, conducting his analysis along two parallel tracks, one which assumed that the piece floated high, and the other in which it floated submerged. For good measure, he also considered scenarios in which the flaperon floated submerged until it arrived in the vicinity of Réunion, and then floated high in the water for the last two days. (Note that he doesn’t present any mechanism by which a thing could occur; I can’t imagine one.)
After running hundreds of thousands of simulated drift trials under varying assumptions, Daniel concluded that if the piece floated as its Lepas population suggests, that is to say submerged, then it couldn’t have started anywhere near the current seabed search area. (See chart above.) Its most likely point of origin would have been close to the equator, near Indonesia. His findings in this regard closely mirror those of Brock McEwen and the GEOMAR researchers which I discussed in my previous post.
Daniel found that when simulated flaperons were asssumed to have been pushed by the wind, their location on March 8, 2014 lay generally along a lone that stretched from the southwest corner of Australia to a point south of Cape Horn in Africa (see below). This intersects with the 7th arc. However, as Brock has pointed out, such a scenario should also result in aircraft debris being washed ashore on the beaches of Western Australia, and none has been found. And, again, the presence of Lepas all over the flaperon indicates that such a wind contribution could not have been possible.
Pierre Daniel’s reverse-drift analysis for Météo France, therefore, presents us with yet another block in the growing stack of evidence against the validity of the current ATSB search area in the southern Indian Ocean.
The most important takeaway from this report for me, however, is the stunning discrepancy between how the flaperon floated in the DGA test tank and the “entre deux eaux” neutral buoyancy suggested by its population of Lepas. No doubt some will suggest that the flaperon may have contained leaky cells that slowly filled as it floated across the ocean, then drained after it became beached. However, I find it hard to believe that an organization as sophisticated as the DGA would have overlooked this eventuality when conducting their wind tests. Rather, I read Daniel’s report as evidence that the French authorities have been unable to make sense its own findings. I suspect that this is the reason that they continue to suppress them up to this day.
@Gysbreght, @VictorI,
Do either of you know any reason why the +3%/10C fuel flow effect from the GE engines FCOM tables would not also apply to the Rolls Royce engines?
If not, do you know any reason why it was not included in a footnote on the RR Trent 892 engines?
@Lauren H wrote @jeffwise – If I gave you a box full of B777 replacement parts how would you create the pieces to be planted? In other words, other than the flaperon how do you rip a honeycomb section apart without leaving clamp marks?
A water-jet would due an excellent job tearing apart a plane without leaving marks. A water-jet is like a tiny fire hose running at very high pressure. Just don’t get too close or you will leave cut marks. At just the right distance, a water-jet, will do all the damage shown. Peeling back skins and core; no problem. We used water-jets at Boeing to cut parts all the time. If we were not close enough to do a clean cut; a ragged tear was the result.
A crash in the water at high speed is just like a water-jet but at a higher water volume and lower speed.
@DrBobbyUlich: The RR engines might be slightly more efficient for a given temperature change. My guess is the fuel factor is about 2.5%/10C, but I don’t have Boeing documentation to support this.
@Jeff. I think that might be Cape Agulhas you are referring to. Cape Horn is several thousand miles further west, at the bottom of the Americas.
Even a solid structure (cf fibreglass boats, sealed with epoxy) gain weight as the spend longer in the water. How much more so for something with a compromised honeycomb core with leaky cells. I have no doubt at all that a buoyancy test carried out on such an object after it has been “on the dry” for even for days, nevermind weeks will be very different from when it has floated/bobbed along at its (progressively soggier) equilibrium for 15 months. Add to this the very high levels of uncertainty in long-range drift models in the presence of ocean-gyres….
Adamant inference in such an uncertain set of circumstances are *ahem* “courageous” (cf. “Yes, Minister”).
BTW, wasn’t it interesting that they saw a leeway (of a no-doubt unreasonably buoyant, dried-out piece) of ~3% when someone was suggesting yesterday that 1.5% was “too much”.
Plus, the excerpt above [in French] seems to ignore Stokes drift (wave action effects). A nearly-neutrally buoyant plank of wood with nearly nothing above the surface travels faster than ocean surface current. How much faster? Ask the drift experts.
“Its most likely point of origin would have been close to the equator, near Indonesia.”
Sounds a lot like Christmas Island, or maybe slightly north of it?
Does a land-hugging route fit any of the models?
@ken,@Jeffw, @laurenH
the flaperon looks damaged with rough disassembly almost like this video:
https://youtu.be/QeErkOE46hM
Jeff,
Re:
“with the speed of the drift equal to 3.29% or 2.76% of the speed of the wind” and
“As point of reference, Australia’s CSIRO calculates that that the drifter buoys that it uses to gather ocean-current data pick up a 1.5% contribution from the wind.”
On August 6, 2015 at 4:19 AM I wrote:
“…our estimates were up to 5 cm/s “on top” of currents for winds of approximately 8 m/s.”. This is approximately 0.63%. I have to say that our target was to minimize wind impact, as we used drogues to study currents, and respectively the influence of wind had adverse impact on the accuracy.
@Jeff, I wonder if the flaperon might have flipped over often enough to allow all sides to be covered with lepas, yet not so frequently that they wouldn’t have time to colonise all sides.
Would this possibly explain it?
StevanG,
“but it’s not only Geomar study, independent experts have come to roughly the same area…with about the same probability as well”.
First of all at this point Geomar study looks childish to me. I would like to see their detailed report to understand what they have done exactly instead of their photos in front of the globe.
Secondly, as I mentioned earlier, all reverse drift models are flawed in-principle. Don’t be fooled by the results of a reverse drift model.
Thirdly, I don’t have a preference with regard to a drift model. It is silly to pick one of them and discard all other models on the basis of your preference. It is better to rely on the “average” (over models).
Fourthly, early days I posted so-called “uncorrected gyro”, which terminated somewhere around 105E if I recall correctly. It would be also be consistent with Geomar study. Then what? Interestingly, one of the side-results of “uncorrected gyro” model was that reference heading at KLIA was to N with the error of <0.5 deg. At that time I could not make sense of such a remarkable coincidence. Only recently I learnt (thanks to Oz and RetiredF4) that it is consistent with ADIRU alignment procedure. But I cannot imagine how output from triple-redundant ADIRU can be uncorrected. It does appear to be nearly impossible. So that scenario will be resting on the shelf for now.
Finally, what independent experts are you talking about, and what probability?
@DrBobbyUlich: Can you please remind me which table you’re referring to?
@Jeff
Apologies if this has been addressed…
Wouldn’t the conundrum of submergence be resolved if the flaperon floated (unsubmerged) to Reunion, then lodged under a rock at low tide, sat immersed for a time cultivating barnacles, then eventually released due to wave action and beached nearby?
@Paul re: “how much? Ask the drift experts.”
I did. Or at least, I tried to study their work, to understand Stokes effect.
Incremental to current and wind forces, wave drift (Stokes) forces do indeed act upon any object which floats on the ocean surface, and is thus “in the waves”. But apparently, this effect not only varies directly with object size, but becomes negligible for objects of surprisingly large size. From Breivik, et al, p.5:
“wave drift forces on small objects (less than 30 m), such as cargo containers or oil drums, decay rapidly as the ratio of the dominant wave length over the object’s length increases and can be neglected compared to wind forces as soon as the wave length is more than about six times the object’s length (see also Hogdins and Hodgins, 1998 and Mei, 1989). Hence it can be
assumed that for objects even as large as a cargo container or a small boat, leeway can be expressed in most sea states as a function of the wind only.”
This suggests to my untrained eye that, since the flaperon was even smaller than the items cited, any incremental Stokes effect CSIRO added either WAS small, or SHOULD have been small.
Either way, it seems pretty thin evidence on which to convict Geomar.
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1111/1111.0750.pdf
If there was a question mark about variable buoyancy why not submerge it in a transparent tank in different postures and observe it for release of air. Then weigh it. I suspect they did this. It floated for a reason and it still has those properties may have been the outcome. They haven’t lacked the time or opportunity – sounds like they had a good old play with it.
@Phil, It’s a good idea but Lepas on debris that winds up the seabed tend to quickly get eaten by crabs and things like that.
Jeff’s reporting has implications which go WELL beyond whether to move the search box north. On buoyancy, barnacles, and drift, it seems French investigators were seeing the same fundamental contradictions WE were seeing.
So the task at hand is not to pick which of the above charts is “right” – the task is to reconcile them to each other. How can barnacle-indicated and buoyancy-indicated impact distributions derive from the exact same flaperon, yet come nowhere near to sharing any common ground?
If the entirety of the Meteo report’s analyses are accepted as solid, can anyone construct a plausible scenario in which the flaperon WASN’T planted?
@Brock – I could envision it being tangled and dragged in a net. Not likely, but possible. Particularly if the net was not where it was supposed to be, and the flaperon was cut loose.
I think your work, the work of others, and Jeff’s article are converging on “the search is in the wrong place.” Not entirely shocking.
So admittedly a dragged flaperon is a reach. But playing devil’s advocate, what is the shortest distance the flaperon could have been moved by non-current forces to place it on a different drift path? Surely there must be some boundary areas where currents change quickly. Are they frequently fished or even navigated?
Can someone please explain to me what the concerns are about the GEOMAR drift study, because I think I missed it somehow ?
according to the GEOMAR analysis, ‘all particles originate from a region equatorward of 30oS’.
@Jeff
Thanks for the reply; I wasn’t meaning resting on the seabed, per se, rather lodged amongst large rock(s) along the shoreline such that the item would be below the waterline yet still afloat. Perhaps the same logic might apply regarding predators nonetheless.
@Ken Goodwin,
Thanks for the explanation on using a water-jet to cut composite parts!
If I had to prepare the flaperon for planting I would clamp the trailing edge (with a hydraulic press?) and use the part’s own weight with some additional force (applied via padding) to break it along the rear spar. That way the plant wouldn’t have clamp marks. The trailing edge with the clamp marks would be discarded/burned. Using a 10Kg hammer I would next break the metallic side hinges carefully leaving marks only on the shards going to be discarded. I guess the end result would be very similar to the Reunion flaperon.
It’s actually a simple method to mutilate a defective part.
By the way, you mentioned Boeing’s aerodynamic specifications and NASA at the same post. Did you mean these NACA specs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NACA_airfoil
I guess many readers don’t know that NACA is NASA predecessor and NASA is still officially responsible for advanced aeronautics research in the US:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Advisory_Committee_for_Aeronautics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA
@Phil, the problem is that the Lepas take 6-12 months to reach this size, and they required many months to cross the ocean from the presumed crash site–as I recall, according to Brock’s analysis the flaperon couldn’t even get to Réunion without some help from the wind. So it doesn’t have time to be stuck in rocks.
meanwhile, “planting” elsewhere, FYI;
having Bin laden aniversary, you know, no place to hide and never forget… (fresh violence, at least)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tJphAe9h0w
@jeffwise: Even if no conclusions can be drawn, the Meteo France report is rife with contradictions that demand answers. Perhaps we can get official comments on the sections of the report that are now released. Have you contacted any authorities?
A part drifting across the Indian Ocean completely submerged makes no sense, as many of us have been saying for some time.
But for that matter, I still have questions about how No Step could have drifted across the Indian Ocean. Based on the photographic and video evidence, it appears that the honeycomb cells were either poorly sealed, or not sealed at all, and any trapped air that aided the floatation would have escaped within days.
We have loads of questions. We need more answers.
@Victor: agree 100%.
The bitter irony is that, for the past 9 months, the world’s drift experts would have KILLED for empirical data on freeboard – by direct buoyancy testing OR as inferred from expert barnacle analysis. Only in the case of MH370 can the one drift group ever shown EITHER end up being shown BOTH – with each pointing the search to a different corner of the frigging OCEAN.
Reeks. To. High. Heaven.
@Jeff Wouldn’t the weight of live barnacles be heavier than that of dried out dead barnacles? That could account for some weight to have submerged the flaperon. Maybe not enough but there were a lot of barnacles.
@Jeff
When the French did the buoyancy test was it WITH or WITHOUT Lepas attached as the marine life gradually changes the buoyancy characteristic from sail-like to sea-anchor within months?
Given the amount of time the French authorities have had the flapperon they possibly re-tested it for themselves.
However, I agree there’s something about the way the French are withholding information makes me suspect their findings are not in agreement with the current SIO search area.
More data is needed ….
Carla,
There are many concerns. For example, you wrote:
“according to the GEOMAR analysis, ‘all particles originate from a region equatorward of 30oS’.”
No. According to GEOMAR study all particles ended up >30S starting from Reunion etc. It is not the same as to state that “particles originate” using their methodology.
Cf what @GortoZ said :
Also remember some of the barnacles have been removed in Réunion Island! There is photographic evidence of that.
On a general note, the scenarios explored in the study might be bounding scenarios, but they don’t make sense.
Why didn’t they try a scenario where the flaperon starts with changing angle (no 3) and progressively gets more water logged to end up with floatation line crustaceans (no 4)?
You could then test different speeds of buoyancy loss.
@Oleksander
‘all particles originate from a region equatorward of 30oS’.” are the words of GEOMAR. Do you’ve got a problem with the fact that it is a reverse drift study?
Carla,
“Do you’ve got a problem with the fact that it is a reverse drift study?”
Yes. Earlier I explained why. In brief: all the reverse drift studies are ill-conditioned. In forward models this issue is solved statistically: the more particles, the more accurate is estimation of probability. In reverse models this problem cannot be solved in-principle.
But there is a number of other problems, though pertaining to all drift studies. For example, wind. Where to get accurate surface wind fields to force drift models? It is good to know the coefficient of 3.29% or 2.76%, but what are you going to apply it to?
@Alexandra Gecin, Yes, we can imagine changes in the weight of the barnacles between the time of the beaching and the time the flotation tests were conducted; we also know that some of the barnacles were removed by the marine biologist who inspected them. The weight at issue though would only be on the order of a few ounces. The difference between a flaperon that floated level with the water and one that floated six inches (say) out of it would be on the order of several hundred pounds at least.
One perspective on any theoretical location science based on drift-model analysis is that there are quite obviously a number of variables to be considered in terms of bio-fouling, wind contribution, flotation, submersion, wave motion (i.e., debris items having been tossed end-over-end), etc. Meanwhile, do we know if anyone has considered how the flaperon’s inherent aerodynamic qualities could have impacted its ‘travel dynamics?’
In short, the variables are numerous, and I would argue that while there are clues to garnered via rigorous analysis of the debris and various drift models, purely statistical models and the associated data associated with analysis of the debris should not have us throwing out the baby of the Inmarsat data set with the bath water.
One would hope that some sensible approach that integrates the information garnered from the debris finds together with the indications re the 7th arc will provide enough rationale for continuing the search beyond the scope of the search as presently funded.
As for the dogged persistence of the ATSB in the current search zone, it is nothing but commendable.
As I’ve stated sometime ago. The most likely area of impact is further north. A British sailor by the name of Katherine Tee. Thought she might have seen MH370 on fire the night it went missing, link here.http://m.phuketgazette.net/phuket-news/I-thought-saw-MH370-fire-says-Phuket/29654#
Also on the morning of missing mh370 the was seabed impact sound or anomaly recorded. Here’s the link to thathttp://www.nature.com/news/sound-clue-in-hunt-for-mh370-1.15390
So if Katherine Tee did see MH370 on fire and said it was flying much lower. This supports an impact much further north as fuel exhaustion would be greater at a lower altitude. This supports this drift model by German scientists and other conducted recently.
@Aaron, Both those points have been discussed here at considerable length and are generally regarded as spurious.
@falken
You’re not suggesting MH-370 was to be used in a revenge attack for the loss of Osama Bin Laden???
@Brock. You asked could anybody come up with a scenario in which debris NOT planted. What’s wrong with this: Begin ~40S/90E with a buoyant flaperon. Rapid drift inclusive higher leeway factor to <30S. From there progressively slower/lower in water. Is this not what we should expect? Above figures show "model origin" not track, but it would basically produce something like Fig 2 for first part of journey transitioning to Fig 1 for latter part. I really don't see what all the fuss is about.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT IB TIMES STORY
In regard to the statement published in the IB Times purporting to be from the Chinese families regarding an article by Jeff Wise, I can now confirm this is not true after liaison with the Chinese families groups’ real representatives. The Chinese families’ groups were not aware of this statement and it was not issued on their behalf. They have issued no statement on the subject of the recent debris finds or Jeff’s theories, they were not even aware of this until yesterday.
The source of the statement sent to the IB Times alleging to be on behalf of the families is known to have pretended to represent the Chinese families before and they are aware of his actions, particularly on Facebook. Further comment about this person in a public forum would not be appropriate. Thanks.
@Jeff: above, you state that “Lepas take 6-12 months to reach this size”. My hazy memory tells me this is now precisely the opposite argument from your original planting theory: last Fall, I thought you had experts lined up suggesting they looked like they could be alive for no MORE than a scant few weeks.
Surely, you now have better information, and surely you’ve already documented this somewhere, and I’ve just missed it. But given that the indicated growth periods are now more important than ever, I for one would greatly appreciate a quick summary of the many expert assessments of the multiple barnacle varieties, and a reconciliation, if required, of any apparent contradictions.
@H1ppyG1rl, This a serious allegation, and I’ve asked the source of the press release to provide some way to verify that it is supported by actual Chinese NOK. Meanwhile, could you ask your sources to do the same?
@All: actually, we can even leave the drift analysis right out of it, for a moment, and focus on the following:
“If expert barnacle analysis suggests the 6-12* months immediately prior to the flaperon’s discovery were spent fully immersed, and expert buoyancy testing indicates that this is not even close to its natural state, then some other force held it underwater for the 6-12* months leading up to its discovery. What was this force?”
*pending citation from Jeff
Ideas so far:
– “pinned by a seabed rock near Réunion”: Jeff says no, since barnacles would not survive 6-12 months exposed to sea floor predators.
– “weighted down by the barnacles themselves”: I join Jeff in deeming this impact negligible, given the massive natural buoyancy this object reportedly possessed.
– “flipped over frequently to support barnacle growth on all sides”: experts say no: the greater the natural buoyancy, the more stable its water line – and these species only survive below this line; occasional splashes aren’t enough to survive. If it was highly buoyant – yet DID somehow flip each week – it would have mature barnacles on ZERO sides, not two.
Any other ideas?
I ensured there was verification the Chinese NOK did not know about this statement before I made any comment.
PM is best for details about this.
@Paul: your scenario does not explain how it then reacquired high buoyancy at the END of its journey, as required by the August buoyancy test results reported by Météo.
(I am making the same assumption as Jeff: that the buoyancy testing included the commonsense step of verifying there were no slow leaks.)
@h1ppyg1rl, Well, as unlikely as I find it that you checked with every family member of the 152 Chinese nationals on board, it doesn’t really matter who’s making the allegation; it’s a reasonable point to ask for verification that whoever issued the statement was actually doing it on behalf of real NOK, and I am working on that now.
I seriously doubt, meanwhile, that many Chinese NOK (or indeed NOK in general) would take issue with the substance of the statement. All the family members we’ve heard from are extremely upset about the conduct of the search, the reluctance on the part of officials to release information, and the dubious nature of the debris that has been found.
And as a further aside, it’s come to my attention that your friend Blaine Alan Gibson has been repeatedly badmouthing me and denigrating my credibility on your closed-to-the-public Facebook page. This strikes me as odd behavior, to put it mildly. The incongruities with “No Step” and the other pieces of African debris are inherent in the objects themselves and have nothing to do with my character; the fact that he has decided to attack me personally, in semi-secrecy, rather than deal with real issues in a public forum presents the appearance that he has something to hide.
I’m not sure what your personal motivations are, but I think that you, too, would be well served by openly and forthrightly debating the issues rather than trying to punish people whose opinions are different than your own. I note, for instance, that you’ve kicked both me and Victor Iannello off your Facebook page for drawing obvious conclusions from the appearance of the debris. This also creates the appearance that you have something to fear from the frank discussion of the data on hand.
@Brock, Using homebrew photographic analysis, I measured the largest Lepas I could find in images of the flaperon as 2.3 cm, which I calculated should take around four months to achieve:
http://jeffwise.net/2015/10/09/the-flaperon-flotation-riddle/
Later, I found out that French marine biologist who studied the flaperon measured the longest Lepas at 39 mm, which Cindy Venn told me is close to their maximum size, which they reach in 6-12 months:
http://jeffwise.net/2016/04/13/deriving-the-dimensions-of-the-rodrigues-debris/#more-4747
For point of reference, I used my same photo-analysis to measure the longest Lepas on the Mayotte capsized boat at about 35mm. That object drifted through the same waters for about 8 months.
@Jeff Wise,Yes while I can understand one’s eyewitness accounts can be dubious. Surely the under water sound recorded could have at least been investigated some more (not sure if it was or not) I’ll leave it at that as it not the topic of discussion.
@Jeff: thanks – very helpful. Bear with me – do you have a published source for the 39mm?
@Jeff Wise and all.
My hyper-sensitive ‘moral’ reaction to what happened previous on this blog had to do with my own related accident which I suffered a long time ago now.
Rationaly I know this kind of emotions are not very helpfull to contribute to try help solving this tragedy.
I excuse for over-reacting in this way.
In my hyper-sensitive state sometimes when I sence respect and responsebility to victims get out of sight too much in my view I get triggered.
Now the article on the Chinese relatives who drew hope from your (Jeff Wise) previous statement about ‘planted debris’ seems to turn out ‘bogus’. Glad if it is.
But still this is something to reckon with in the furure imo.
Jeff Wise: I’m sorry for having expressed myself in the terms I did.
@Brock, re: the source for the 39mm, it’s from the paper prepared by Joseph Poupin for the French judiciary. I’ve read the paper but have promised not to release it.
@Jeff (forgive the peppering): while I admit this is a tad on the spurious side, the pre-discovery time period during which it MUST have been pinned further underwater than its natural buoyancy point is given by the “largest of the smallest” – i.e. determine all plausible drift postures, and base your number on the posture which, absent external forces, would leave the YOUNGEST crop exposed (but note the oldest among THESE).
Or is it true that a) buoyancy tests CONFIRMED a dominant posture, AND b) your size estimate is CONFIRMED to have come from the dry side of this dominant posture?
(Still likely to be several months pinned underwater, regardless. And ANY multi-month period is extremely suspicious. I just note from experience that any overstatement of fact – no matter how spurious – gets exploited by the “there’s nothing to see, here” brigade.)